In 1999, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative scored an unequivocal victory: It wiped one of three serotypes of wild poliovirus, type 2, off the face of the earth, except for samples stored in labs for study or vaccine creation. That triumph left just two foes to battle, poliovirus types 1 and 3, which have continued to put up quite a fight. But now a version of type 2 has returned. Springing back to life from a weakened form of the pathogen used in a vaccine, poliovirus type 2 is causing a runaway outbreak in Nigeria, where types 1 and 3 are also raging. In July, the World Health Organization issued a global alert warning that type 2 poliovirus in Nigeria posed an "increasing risk of international spread." It's a stunning setback for the initiative, now already 9 years past its original deadline for vanquishing the virus.Comment: I must admit that this report makes me really angry. While there is a place for respect for other cultures and the diversity of cultural beliefs, there should be limits. We should not respect cultures that deliberately commit wars of aggression. We should also not respect the Nigerian culture that refuses to irradicate polio, which has resulted in a multinational epidemic a few years ago reinfecting a number of countries, and now threatens to incubate a new and dangerous strain of the disease.
We quaranteen individuals and families that present the threat of introducing dangerous communicable diseases into the general population. Maybe we should consider a quaranteen for Northern Nigeria until the peole there clean up their polio problems! JAD
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