Why is the oral (live) polio vaccine still being used? It has been proven that it spreads the disease. Counterintuitive if the goal is to eradicate said disease.
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@Libby
Polio was eliminated in this country and the western hemisphere mainly due to live OPV. We did not switch to inactivated vaccine until it was eradicated because, yes, live virus polio vaccine can lead to paralytic polio, rarely, in the immune compromised. Why risk this when there is no wild type virus around to spread?
However, where there is still rampant polio - OPV:
- is much easier and cheaper to administer
- can easily be done by non-medical community workers
- more likely to passively immunize family members as the virus in the vaccine is spread the same way as the polio virus.
Of course, if there are mutant strains of OPV in which the vaccine is as likely to cause disease as the actual virus, then, yes, IPV. But vaccine coverage will probably be much worse than it is.
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@Libby. Can you provide documentation of your claim? WHO doesn't seem to agree.
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@Libby
How odd. I am old enough to have received the live polio vaccine when it first came out. No polio yet. Can you refer us to the source or sources of your claim that it spreads the disease? If true it would mean that large parts of the world would be rife with polio - but that doesn't seem to be the case.
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Superstition, ignorance and misinformation are the enemies of good health. The fact that the vaccination program includes many who advocate for the cause of vaccination through superstition, ignorance and misinformation accounts for much of the resistance to vaccination worldwide.
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I CANT EVEN IMAGINE THE STRUGGLE OF GOOD PEOPLE DOING WHAT THEY CAN UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES TO ADMINISTER THE POLIO VACCINES — IS THERE A REASON WHY THE UN DOESNT TRAVEL TO REMOTE AREAS TO DO SO? It’s amazing how guns and other sophisticated weapons do make it to those regions! if the vaccine were airlifted with a team of meds under the supervision of local leaders this could be done efficiently and will prevent the awful consequences described. I STILL REMEMBER EVERY OTHER HOUSE BEING HIT BY POLIO IN DOWNTOWN HAIFA WHERE WE LIVED IN 1947-52. There was no vaccine yet and an inexplicable mood hovering during the summer of 1950. Surely folks are intelligent in Afghanistan and Pakistan and border region in Iran for local doctors to come in to talk to families about the threat of Polio. They can show vividly what and how the medical world practically killed the disease in the past in other places! My dad told me yes later he prayed when it appeared kids in our building fell ill with symptoms. We personally didn’t know anybody but those were very nerve wrecking times and we were all going swimming in public pools and occasionally folks would beg us ( kids) to empty our lunch juices for fear of germs in the heat! Today we can buy iced clean water in bottles and get those shots early on.
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I think the hands attached to that "health worker" will cause more illness to that child than polio.
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Coming to the USA soon.
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Another factor is that in countries with national health systems, the incentive is for doctors is to look good, thus be able to report no cases (if they report any number at all), and thus to send parents with children possibly infected to other districts for exams and lab tests. Who knows if they arrive. Educating the women of a high risk area about polio so that they will put pressure on local doctors to follow through is not encouraged, and often discouraged, including by international agencies; speaking to large groups of women is not what doctors think of themselves - or others - as doing.
In addition, OPV presumably still depends on continuous electricity to keep the vaccine below a certain temperature to remain usable. In many parts of the some countries, that isn't done or simply isn't available, or the freezers donated to do so instead end up in some government official's home - or even in an ice cream shop. I speak of all this from experience.
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This is certainly tragic, but, not out of character for either the region or the regressive dogma subscribed to by the vast majority of the citizenry. On a list of horrible, preventable, injustices endured by the population, lack of immunization isn't even worthy of note. There will be more honor killings and female infanticides in Pakistan this year, than new cases of polio. Let's put this in a realistic perspective.
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Arguably religious fanaticism has done more than other isms, except perhaps the great twentieth century scourges, Nazism and Communism, to kill innocent people, such as the polio stricken children of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Your article doesn't say who is spreading killer lies but it would not be surprising if the Taliban were behind the anti-vaccine propaganda, claiming that Allah willed it
If I recall correctly, here in the U.S. a few fundamentalist Christian preachers have endangered their flocks by telling them not to give children childhood vaccines. The 1st Amendment protects free speech not public endangerment.
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One can understand how remote, poorly educated people in Pakistan are easily misled by false rumours and religious fanatics, but when one hears about Italian politicians spreading the same lies, it is truly depressing.
It would be a global tragedy if polio, once on the verge of extinction, were to get a grip yet again.
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What makes you think Italian politician are not “remote, poorly educated individuals”?
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Might this have to do something with the fake polio vaccinations that were used to catch Osama Bin Laden?
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This photo will not help recruit new candidates for vaccination!
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