The Return of Polio

There was a case of the disease in the US. There are no other reported cases yet. It highlights the fact that there is still a vaccine available for the disease.

The anterior horn cells of the spine are the primary targets of the disease. This causes a lot of weakness. Hundreds of thousands of children were paralyzed by the disease before it was vaccineed. Cases plummeted after the introduction of the vaccine in the 60s.

According to the CDC, the US has been free of the disease for 33 years. The disease has been eliminated in the US. There have only been a few isolated cases imported from outside the US since then.

The World Health Organization predicted in 2002 that they would be able to eradicate the disease by 2005. There is no non-human source of the disease. A robust vaccine campaign was used to accomplish this. One of the last three countries with infections has a conspiracy theory being spread in Nigeria. There was an anti-vaccine campaign in that area.

It took fifteen years to get back to that point. Pakistan and Afghanistan were the only places that still had wild-type Polio by 2020. The WHO was able to see the finish line even though there was an increase in the last two countries. The Pandemic hit first.

The WHO's efforts to eradicate the disease were hampered by carbon dioxide. The vaccine programs in poor countries had to be stopped. The US was threatening to reduce funding for the WHO because of their vaccine program. In the two years since, there have been cases in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Pakistan and Afghanistan have the highest number of cases of the disease in the world. We will have to spend a lot of time trying to get back to the point of eradication after missing another chance.

There are two sources of the disease, the vaccine-derived one and the wild type one. The live attenuated vaccine is not used in the US where the inactivated vaccine is used. Unvaccinated children can catch a vaccine-derived virus that is weakened by live weakened viruses. The best way to prevent vaccine-derived cases is to get vaccinations.

The man who contracted the NY case was notvaccinated. The strain of the virus has been linked to a strain in Israel, but this strain has also been found in the UK.

It's possible to look for viral DNA in wastewater. The wastewater in New York and London has been found to contain the disease. There have been no new cases reported, so it's likely that people are getting rid of the virus by throwing it away. This is concerning and needs to be monitored more closely.

The problem is that the disease is very infectious. Vaccination is the only proven way to stop infections. The only way to eradicate the disease is by making the vaccine programs as thorough as possible.

The recent case in NY shows that we still need to immunize children against the disease even in countries where it's not a problem. Eradication becomes an endless game of whack-a-mole if we don't protect those countries from new outbreak. We need to immunize the world against the disease until it's gone.

The recent increase in the number of people affected by the disease shows how quickly it can be regenerated. The anti-vaccine movement has pushed back against the vaccine because it is not spreading in the US. This is the reason.

The WHO is leading the effort to eradicate the disease. If there is criticism of the WHO, that doesn't mean it doesn't provide some essential services Reducing or cutting funding for the World Health Organization would be a disaster.

The time is right for us to increase our efforts to eradicate the disease. We are not far away from this goal. This needs to be a world-wide priority. Even a single holdout can mean failure.

• Steven Novella is the founder and currently Executive Editor of Science-Based Medicine. The Great Courses and The Skeptics Guide to the Universe were both written by Dr. Novella.

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