Polio Threatens Europe as Virus Makes Comeback Amid Wars

[DonViejo]

Source: Bloomberg

November 8, 2013 11:54 AM

Polio, the crippling virus driven to the brink of extinction, may return to Europe as regional conflicts undermine a $10 billion eradication campaign.

Polio’s re-appearance in Syria last month after a 14 year absence raises the risk that the virus will hitch a ride on unsuspecting refugees fleeing the country and return to areas, including Europe, that have been polio-free for decades, according to a letter published in the The Lancet medical journal today.

“Polio is making a comeback,” Martin Eichner, a professor at the University of Tuebingen who co-authored the letter to The Lancet, said by phone today. Eichner and a German colleague warned that the vaccine used in the U.S. and Europe offers only partial protection against infection and called for heightened screening of sewage systems near refugee settlements in Turkey and Jordan. Syrian war refugees, moreover, have begun arriving in Western Europe, including Sweden and Germany.

Syria isn’t the only area where poliomyelitis, as the disease is formally known, is rearing its head. It has resurfaced in the Horn of Africa as well as in sewage samples in Israel and Egypt. So far this year, 322 cases have been reported globally, up from last year’s record low of 223. The gain snapped five years of consecutive decline, according to data from the World Health Organization.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-07/polio-threatens-europe-as-virus-makes-comeback-amid-wars.html

[WilliamPitt]

1. Jesus H. West-o-Centric CHRIST

The first sentence warns against the potential of a polio outbreak in Europe.

THE WHOLE FUCKING ARTICLE is about an ACTUAL POLIO OUTBREAK in the Middle East.

Go home, stupid headline. You're drunk, and a dick.

[tblue]

2. Truly!

[onehandle]

3. Damn A-rabs and their diseases. Bomb their ass and take their gas!

[Tarheel_Dem]

4. This is kinda scary, and extremely sad. I heard a report on NPR this a.m. n/t

[Crowman1979]

5. At first I thouht the anti-vaccination paranoia had spread to Europe.

[KamaAina]

6. Actually, a lot of it originated in the UK

with Dr.* Andrew Wakefield.

[Paka]

7. As a retired microbiologist...

who worked in International disease control at one point in my life, and who grew up when polio outbreaks across the US were common, pre-Salk/Sabin vaccines, this is to be taken seriously. Europe is indeed at risk and the path up from Syria is not so obstacle prone as to dismiss this risk.

[dflprincess]

8. So, just curious, and I hope this question isn't too dumb

Does the Sabin vaccine provide permanent immunity or, if outbreaks become more widespread, will we need to get boosters?

I'm assuming, because it's a live vaccine, that we don't - but there are other vacs we thought were permanent and now have found out they aren't (mostly I'm thinking of pertussis).

[Paka]

9. Excellent question!

In my opinion, no vaccine should ever be relied upon to be permanent. Permanency is directly related to the eradication of the disease in the population. This will become an issue if polio does get started again in Europe. Many who were vaccinated decades ago and thought they had no further worries could now be at risk. Your example of pertussis is spot on.

[Igel]

10. The real reason the Taliban didn't like the inoculation campaigns in Pakhtun territory.

We were destroying their biological weapons factories.


Now that they've managed to spread it to Nigeria, Somalia, and Syria--with excursi into adjacent areas--it'll be harder to destroy all their biological weapons "factories" before they can deploy them to enemy territory.

(Just wait. That's not the PR from Zawahri just yet so this is still unmitigated snark, but in a few months ... It won't be enough to be virile, you'll have to be viral as well.)