Polio 'to die out by end of year'

[T_i_B]

How about some good news for a change?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3533618.stm

The World Health Organisation says it is optimistic that polio can be eradicated globally by the end of 2004.

The claim follows the resumption of vaccination campaigns in parts of northern Nigeria.

Between now and the end of the year, the WHO aims to run national immunisation projects in 22 African countries.

Campaigns are also continuing in the other endemic region, South Asia, with the aim of eradicating the virus globally by the end of the year.

[Dookus]

1. Let's hope it's true

what an amazing accomplishment that would be. My dad had polio in his youth. To think such a disease could be eliminated altogether is a huge testament to science.

[noonwitch]

16. My dad had it, too. He's now dealing with post-polio syndrome

My dad never realized that that really bad illness he had as a kid was polio because his parents never took him to the doctor. He always walked a little funny, but got around well enough to play hockey as a kid and bowl until he was in his 40s, when he got arthritis in his knees and had trouble walking. Even that, he blamed on old hockey injuries. When he was in his late 50s, he started getting numbness in his legs, which was quite a change from his painful arthritis. His doctor told him he had post-polio syndrome, and he was shocked. He can still walk, with crutches, but uses a wheelchair when he needs to go far. He also had to move to Florida, because he can't get around in the cold.

I hope this disease is eradicated. It caused so much suffering, and in this country, we have pretty much eliminated it.

[Sporadicus]

2. Truly Good News for Humankind...With a Qualifier

It's good news as long as government labs allow it be eradicated completely. At some point in the future I don't want to hear that vials have been cultured and shared with repressive regimes for the purpose of creating a biological weapon (as in the case of smallpox).

[Bowline]

6. Awww, c'mon, OUR government would never do such a thing!

Right?

[Sporadicus]

7. Of Course Not!

:eyes:

[truthisfreedom]

3. we wiped out smallpox and they turned it into a weapon of mass distraction

what do you think they'll do with polio?

[BiggJawn]

12. Keep "samples" nice and cozy in a lab....

just in case it should "pop up" again, and they need live virii to use for "identification".

Why not use a computer model?
Oh, that's right, a computer model is non-infectious, and thus has no military value......

[fujiyama]

4. That would be very good news

I hope the same can soon be said of malaria, AIDS, as well as other diseases. BTW, anyone know what the status is of Tuberculosis (TB)? I'm not sure if it has been eradicated yet.

[alarimer]

5. TB is relatively common

Compared to polio at least. As far as I know there is no vaccine; it isn't a virus and there are many strains resistant to powerful antibiotics, because of the abuse of antibiotics in this country. With all of the "antibacterial" products out there and antibiotics in milk, there will be many other drug-resistant diseases.

[Red State Rebel]

11. My daughter had TB when she was 2

The Dr. who treated her said the main problem they are having with TB is the treatment takes a long time. I know she was on the medication for a year. A lot of people tire of the regimen of medicine and Dr. visits and slack off after a couple of months so they never get rid of the disease and contribute to it's growing resistance against the anti-biotics.

Lori got her TB from a neighbor who babysat for her once in a while. This poor woman never did find out how she got it (you can get coughed on in a store and you are infected) but she had given it to her son also and it ended up ruining her marriage. She was quarantined and her loving (grrrr) hubby couldn't handle having to do the grocery shopping, laundry and errands so he left her.

[T_i_B]

15. There is a vaccine for TB

I should know, I had my TB jab when I was 10 and still have the mark on my left arm to prove it!

[TO Kid]

21. You sure it wasn't a test?

In school we were tested every couple of years, it involved poking the skin and looking for a reaction after about a week.

[T_i_B]

22. I had the test,

then about a week later I had the actual TB jab. The test actually isn't too bad but the actual TB jab is a bit of a pain, both in terms of the injection and the sore that is there afterwards as you will be able to tell from muriel_volestrangler's reply, which I can relate to only too well.

[giant_robot]

17. There is a live TB vaccine which is used outside

which is used outside of the US (BCG), but there is controversy over its effectiveness.

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. It's very effective

as a target for someone to hit you on. It stays sore for months. "Ow - no, please, not my BCG - OW!!!!"

[Enraged_Ape]

8. TB is making a comeback

Particularly thanks to increasing numbers of the homeless, among whom the disease is prominent. Another thing we have to thank the Republicans for.

[Red State Rebel]

9. What great news!

I worked at a Retirement Community and a few of the residents there still bore the burden of the ravages of that disease. One in particular was a sassy lady named Eve who walked on her own with difficulty - had never married - but had a personality that defied her twisted legs. It's great to know that nobody else will have to suffer from this disease.

[Snow]

19. TB is a tough nut.....

There is a vaccine, as others have already mentioned, and there's a better vaccine in the works. TB itself requires repeated large doses to pass on - think grandpa living with the family in small quarters that get closed up part of the year when it's cold. And it can hide in your body for decades, maybe even never develop into symptomatic disease, unless conditions for the bug improve. So if your nutritional status goes down or you get worn down by demands of your work, or you get debilitated by a viral infection - then the TB bug can pop back to life. And naturally, something with that much patience requires a lot of time to kill off, which poses a constant challenge to TB control workers. Given that TB patients are often poor, homeless, sometimes literally nomads, how do you keep them taking meds for up to 2 years to get them cured? WHO has come up with some very clever programs, and those work a lot better than some of the old ways of treating (ie, come to the clinic monthly while taking meds - unsupervised - daily for 2 years), but you still can't get around that latency period of decades. In other words, most of 2020's active pulmonary TB cases are probably already walking around infected but invisible to most diagnostic techniques. We'll get it eventually, but when poverty rises, we take quite a few steps backward.

[TO Kid]

20. Problem with eliminating malaria..

Biggest problem is that the most effective anti-malaria efforts (mosquito control) were stopped in the 1970s by environmental activists, some of whom freely admitted to believing that eradicating the disease would lead to overpopulation. There is no vaccine for malaria because it is caused by by parasites, not virii or bacteria, and the most effective antimalarial drugs have some rather devastating neurological side effects.

[NickB79]

24. Bullshit

"the most effective anti-malaria efforts (mosquito control) were stopped in the 1970s by environmental activists"

Are you referring to the banning of DDT use in the US and other countries in the 1970's? If so, you should know that DDT is still in widespread use in many African countries even today, despite the US ban on it. Environmentalists had no serious influence in most countries outside of the US or Europe to ban DDT. Even our southern neighbor, Mexico, still allows limited DDT usage for mosquito control. DDT is still allowed to be used to fight mosquitos in many countries; it is only banned from widespread use in farm fields as a general insecticide.

Mosquito controls were never stopped by environmentalists. What happened was that mosquitos developed an immunity to DDT, and DDT lost its effectiveness. Before it was banned in the US, there were already pockets of resistance across the country forming. It was only a matter of time anyways before DDT became useless, and nothing environmental activists could have done would have changed that.

[Tracer]

10. I'm relieved that the Nigerian parents ...

... put the welfare of their children ahead of the fear-mongers who claimed that the vaccine was a western plot to infect the population with AIDS.

A sad but telling point is that they were informed that the vaccine was produced in Malaysia, not the U.S.

[T_i_B]

14. Why was it produced in Malaysia?

Because Malaysia can produce polio vaccine more cheaply then the US can. As a result Polio vaccine becomes more affordable for the peasants of Nigeria and it is much easier to eradicate polio. :-)

I don't see why people in the 3rd world should go without medicine because of western protectionist political dogma.

[lostnfound]

13. My mother had to learn to walk all over again at age 3

She had therapy and special treatments throughout her youth, and walked with a little limp throughout her 65 years.

So this makes me very happy.

Here's to you, Mom..wherever you are. :toast:

[dflprincess]

23. The article is not quite as optimistic as the thread title suggest

Money, of course, being the obstacle to achieving this goal.

<snip>
The World Health Organization says it is optimistic that polio can be eradicated globally by the end of 2004.

However the WHO says significant obstacles remain, not least a shortage of funds.

... However the initiative faces a funding shortfall running to several hundred million dollars, and unless further more money is donated quickly, some of these campaigns may not take place.

This is a critical period for the polio eradication initiative, which commenced in 1988.

However, if it is not finished, polio will re-emerge as a major global disease.

<end snip>

The other thing I wonder about - I remember seeing a "Nova" episode about polio several years ago that said the polio germ lives in dirt and so it was one of the few diseases that increased as hygene became easier. (The theory being that when everything was dirty, people were exposed to small amounts of the germ and developed immunities. Less exposure meant more severe polio cases.) So, when they say eradicated do they mean like small pox was eradicated or will everyone still need to get the vaccine?

[Snow]

26. Smallpox is one of the very few diseases that does not have

some sort of natural reservoir to speak of. Polio, unfortunately, will continue to exist out there even after the disease, especially the symptomatic paralytic disease, is gone. This is true of a lot of other "rare" diseases that we vaccinate for - tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis being three very good examples - thay have places to hide, to keep alive, and if a human community becomes vulnerable again, they come right back. Anti-vaccine activists seem to have difficulty grasping this.

[genius]

25. Tony Robbins claims they changed the name of the disease.

to make it look like it was being eradicated. I don't recall what he said they changed it to. Half of what he says is well-researched and half is nonsense.