Maybe we will get rid of polio for good.

"Efforts to Eradicate Polio Receive Much Needed Funds"
By Maureen O'Leary, Science in the Headlines, National Academy of Sciences

"The global campaign to eradicate polio received a $200 million grant this week to help fund the final push to wipe out the disease that mostly strikes children under five. The grant from the Gates Foundation and Rotary International will go largely toward immunization campaigns, surveillance, and public education.

"Polio incidence has been reduced by more than 99 percent worldwide since the eradication effort began in 1988. However, the virus persists in Afghanistan, Congo, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Somalia. Armed conflicts and weak health services in these areas make it difficult to reach the high vaccination levels needed to stop the disease. And poor sanitation and pervasive intestinal viruses diminish the polio vaccine's effectiveness in India."

Comment: Polio was a fearsome disease when I was a kid. Children were crippled for life. People were hospitalized in iron lungs. The development of a polio vaccine was truly worthy of the Nobel Prize. It is an infectious disease, and could come back unless we eradicate it worldwide. The failure of the polio campaign in northern Nigeria a few years ago was attributed to misinformation being disseminated among tribal, Islamic peoples who distrusted both their own government and the international community. The disease was spread from the uninoculated areas in Nigeria by people participating in the Hajj. The places where it continues to exist are basically places where government does not work. Money is important, but governments should also put pressure to see that money is used well where it is needed. There is no acceptable reason to let polio continue to exist, and that knowledge should be conveyed to people, especially influential people everywhere.

Thanks to the Gates Foundation and Rotary International. JAD

Global Distribution of Polio, 2003