Polio Outbreak Puts Global Eradication at Risk

Health teams in Pakistan have been attacked repeatedly since the Taliban denounced vaccines as a Western plot to sterilize Muslims and imposed bans on inoculation in June 2012.

In North Waziristan, a region near the Afghan border that has been cordoned off by the Taliban, dozens of children, many under the age of two, have been crippled by the viral disease in the past six months.

And there is evidence in tests conducted on sewage samples in some of the country's major cities that the polio virus is starting to spread beyond these isolated pockets and could soon spark fresh polio outbreaks in more densely populated areas.

Polio is a highly infectious disease that invades the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis in a matter of hours.

The virus has been cornered to just a handful of areas in Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the three countries where polio is endemic. Global cases have dropped by more than 99.9 percent in less than three decades, from 350,000 in 1985 to just 223 last year, according to the GPEI.

But so far in 2013, there have already been 296 cases worldwide. Forty-three were in Pakistan, the vast majority in children in the semi-autonomous Pashtun lands along the Afghan border known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), which include North Waziristan.

Four polio cases in children in Pakistan were reported in the last week. Because the virus spreads from person to person, the World Health Organization says as long as any child remains infected, children everywhere are at risk.
Read more HERE

In 2011 the US used a vaccination teams to try and find Bin Laden once the Talban found that out they taken measures to stop the teams by both spreading propaganda and attacking those carrying out the vaccinations and their security. If the disease were to spread to a major city the outbreak could be devastating. The Taliban could also use the disease as a biological weapon by harvesting it.

reply to post by Grimpachi

The Taliban could also use the disease as a biological weapon by harvesting it.

Did you really just say that???? Perhaps you need to apply for Jay Carneys job!

Holy crap Batman, the government has convinced people to be so scared that they may believe the Taliban is ready to use Polio as a weapon????

I suppose their laboratory is buried in the same cave as the one that Bin Laden had his dialysis done in????

This is the kind of paranoia that makes me BEG every night before I go to bed that some intelligent race from another planet just shows humanity some kindness and wipes every God damn one of us out!

reply to post by seeker1963


Please clarify. Are you saying they are above such things or are you saying they are not capable of such things?

I will disagree with both stances because they are attacking health workers and keeping them from preventing its spread and I think they are smart enough to simply collect blood samples to infect others which could easily be used to infect others.

Imagine instead of a suicide bomber a suicide traveler infected with polio flying all over the world.



Polio is highly contagious it wouldn’t take much to cause an outbreak.

seeker1963


Holy crap Batman, the government has convinced people to be so scared that they may believe the Taliban is ready to use Polio as a weapon????

By denying vaccine to a population that is seeing polio outbreaks, they are already using it as a weapon.

Ever hear of the Khmer Rouge?

It's right out of the playbook.

Well Great, just when me and my grandpa were talking about polio being gone the other day.

reply to post by badgerprints

By denying vaccine to a population that is seeing polio outbreaks, they are already using it as a weapon.

Ever hear of the Khmer Rouge?

It's right out of the playbook.

Mother nature has it's own way of culling the herd!

Perhaps if science had not been used for nefarious means, this post would have merit.

Unfortunately for mankind, our governments have chosen to use science as a means for destruction...........

Get it?

It continues to sadden me that everyone still underestimates the power of Vitamin C. and what ails us.

Polio is cured by high doses of Vitamin C. And that is a medical fact.

Dr. Klenner

Medical Source

Dr. Klenner's Research

reply to post by Julie Washington


Would you care to test that theory on yourself?

seeker1963
reply to post by badgerprints

 

By denying vaccine to a population that is seeing polio outbreaks, they are already using it as a weapon.

Ever hear of the Khmer Rouge?

It's right out of the playbook.

Mother nature has it's own way of culling the herd!

Perhaps if science had not been used for nefarious means, this post would have merit.

Unfortunately for mankind, our governments have chosen to use science as a means for destruction...........

Get it?

edit on 19-10-2013 by seeker1963 because: (no reason given)

Ok,
So, you condemn science based upon your views of what politicians have done with it.
Great.
So by nature of your narrow and biased view of a very far reaching and involved subject, only posts that agree with you have merit.

Got it? Oh yeah. I got it.
You have fun with that.
We really do need to bring back the ignore button.
Some posters genuinely create a need for it.

Grimpachi
reply to post by Julie Washington

 

Would you care to test that theory on yourself?

In a heartbeat...if the occasion arises... along with any other malady... such as cancer.

I don't know what I had as a kid but I remember I was really ill, and my legs became paralyzed for several days. It is the scariest feeling. I know now there are viruses that can mimic polio but because paralysis can happen in polio the memtion of this disease always brings back this memory. You are completely helpless and not sure if the feeling will come back. No child should go through this if it's preventable. Not only that - it is my understanding it can return later in life. I hope they use some of the 1.9 billion Obama sent over there to vaccinate.

Whoever said they are worried that the Taliban might use Polio as a weapon, simply because they refuse to allow the areas they have control of to accept U.S. vaccines, is INSANE.

I am a US citizen, and I would NEVER trust ANYTHING from our government, especially a vaccine. What taliban or muslim in the ME in their right MINDS would EVER trust the US government to not put something bad in the vaccines they are sending out?

I am NOT saying our government is doing it. I have no proof of it. I am simply saying it could EASILY be done, and I don't think it would surprise ANYONE if we did tamper with the vaccines we sent over there.


Vaccines can save lives, and they certainly have saved more lives then they've destroyed.....but no one should ever be forced to take them.

Now, if a Muslim in the ME wants to risk taking a US vaccine, I say let them.....but of course we all know the Taliban puts their foot down in the areas they control....so, too bad.

By denying vaccine to a population that is seeing polio outbreaks, they are already using it as a weapon.

Ever hear of the Khmer Rouge?

It's right out of the playbook.

Vaccines do very little to prevent diseases as any immunity gained is temporary at best. A virus or bacterium must travel through all natural avenues of your immune system for your body to gain a competent immunity, not be injected into your body with a myriad of harmful chemicals that can do serious damage. They are wise in resisting vaccination, I wouldn't doubt it created their polio epidemic.

reply to post by supermarket2012


If they don't trust ours they should make their own to save their own people. Most vaccine benefits outweigh their risks by a long shot. No one in the U. S. would ever use this venue to kill people in Pakistan by the way.

Did they have easy access to vaccinations prior to now?

Anyone have the history of outbreaks in that region for the last century?

We could compare to see how vaccination actually played into the natural cycles of the region.

tigershark1988
Vaccines do very little to prevent diseases as any immunity gained is temporary at best. A virus or bacterium must travel through all natural avenues of your immune system for your body to gain a competent immunity, not be injected into your body with a myriad of harmful chemicals that can do serious damage.

I can understand mistrust of "the establishment," "the government," etc. and I would never assert that vaccines are a perfect solution or that they never cause harm. However, your claims here are simply untrue. Have you ever taken an immunology class? Do you understand the purpose of the various vaccine components (e.g. adjuvants) you're dismissing as "a myriad of harmful chemicals"?

opopanax

tigershark1988
Vaccines do very little to prevent diseases as any immunity gained is temporary at best. A virus or bacterium must travel through all natural avenues of your immune system for your body to gain a competent immunity, not be injected into your body with a myriad of harmful chemicals that can do serious damage.

I can understand mistrust of "the establishment," "the government," etc. and I would never assert that vaccines are a perfect solution or that they never cause harm. However, your claims here are simply untrue. Have you ever taken an immunology class? Do you understand the purpose of the various vaccine components (e.g. adjuvants) you're dismissing as "a myriad of harmful chemicals"?

Have you? I haven't taken an immunology class specifically, but I used to work as a nurse and have done extensive research on the various properties of vaccines. Aluminum, Formaldehyde, and mercury are all well known to be poisonous even in small doses as the effects are cumulative. Foreign genetic material often contaminates the shots after serial passage and some diseases can even jump the species barrier. You should do some research into the history of vaccine creation, It's pretty disturbing.

reply to post by tigershark1988


Do you know that vaccine does not always mean needles are involved? Oral polio vaccine has been in use for quite some time in less developed nations.

reply to post by Grimpachi

I did know this, it is not used in the US.
The attenuated virus still undergoes a form of serial passage through monkey kidney cells, and grants no long term immunity.

reply to post by tigershark1988


Well good news is I havnt read about any polio outbreaks in the US as for the OP it is about regions outside the US where OPV is given in many cases and the Taliban is trying to keep them from doing that. If you are anti vaccine that's fine but let's not compare apples and oranges.