Bouter Le Poliomyelite Hors d'Afrique

August 26, 2020 3:24 AM

Africa declared free of wild polio after decades of work [Grauniad]

Africa Celebrates the End of the Wild Poliovirus (but Not the End of All Polio) [NYT]
Africa Declares Wild Polio Is Wiped Out — Yet It Persists In Vaccine-Derived Cases [NPR]
First Person: fighting anti-vaccination rumours in Pakistan [UN]

posted by chavenet (5 comments total)

This is simultaneously one of the most inspiring and depressing things I've read in a while. It's a sheer triumph of late 20th century pan-national institution building.

No-one should be under any illusion that the WHO, GPEI, UN etc were apolitical entities entirely free of historical bias and political motivations, but the answer to that is not "Let's destroy pan national institutions and return to nationalism as a stronger guiding force, just when global existential challenges beyond borders are ramping up for the foreseeable future"

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Also, the phrase "vaccine derived polio" (RTFA in nyt before commenting, people) is gonna enable a field day with the aggressively ignorant and toxic antivaxxers and anti-science assholes.
posted by lalochezia at 4:29 AM on August 26, 2020 [7 favorites]

Despite the failings, it's a spectacular achievement.

Wild polio is apparently still active in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
posted by theora55 at 7:49 AM on August 26, 2020 [1 favorite]

Congratulations to everyone who contributed to this result.
posted by harriet vane at 5:19 AM on August 27, 2020

Thank you for posting this, chavenet - I saw the news and planned to post it, but probably wouldn't have gotten around to it, and I didn't have your additional links.

The Time magazine article I saw starts out, "Nobody will ever know the identity of the thousands of African children who were not killed or paralyzed by polio this year."

When I come across news like this, good news about the world, I try to take a moment to imagine the individuals whose lives will be better, forever, because of this: this little girl, this little boy, this mom, this grandfather, not having to bear the pain of a child or grandchild suffering this terrible disease.

350,000 of those children every year, just 30 years ago.

So many thousands and thousands of individual lives.
posted by kristi at 8:48 PM on August 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

I read the articles but I don't understand, is eradication specifically of wild-type polio a milestone to people in Africa? Do they not care about total polio? (I'm not bashing vaccines, I am happy to praise them for reducing total polio, but is there something special about wild-type polio that I'm missing?)
posted by away for regrooving at 1:38 AM on August 29, 2020