Good news: Eradication of polio within reach!
A study in Lancet, a British medical journal, suggests that a new vaccine could give polio the same fate as smallpox:
A new oral polio vaccine is making headlines today -- and small wonder. World Health Organization scientist Roland Sutter hailed the vaccine that could "get us to the finish line of polio eradication."
As an audio recording explains, there used to three polio viruses. The original polio vaccine was able to destroy one of the viruses, but could not completely eliminate the others. This new vaccine is much more effective against the last two, and has had remarkable success in trials in reducing polio onsets: 98% in Nigeria, and 90% in India.
History records that the first widespread polio epidemic in the United States occurred in 1916. It was not until 1953 that a vaccine was discovered, and it took until 1979 to completely eradicate the disease within the US.
But it was not vanquished worldwide.
In 1988, when the WHO and its partners formed the Global Polio Eradication Initiative to lead a drive to eradicate polio, the virus was endemic in 125 countries and paralyzed nearly 1,000 children every day...
Mass vaccination with older triple, or trivalent, oral polio vaccines has helped reduced the number of countries where polio is endemic to just four and there has been a 99 percent reduction in polio cases worldwide since 1988.
And now, a push is on to rid the world of polio once and for all using the new vaccine:
In a briefing after the study was published, WHO spokesman Rod Curtis said some 72 million children in 15 countries across Africa would be vaccinated in immunization campaigns this week, including 55.7 million who will receive the bivalent ((the new)) vaccine.
Within most of our lifetimes this disease could be no more.
Now if only they could invent a vaccine for stupidity.