Global Polio Eradication

The modern vaccine has been one of the most successful and useful scientific inventions of this past century.

Global Polio Eradication

Such a simple strategy: induce the body's own immune system to develop a strong long-term immunity to a disease before the body comes into contact with the actual, sometimes fatal, disease. And the beauty of the vaccine is that, being a preventative measure against the disease itself, it is extremely inexpensive and accessible to society as a whole, as opposed to most forms of medical care that is aimed at treating diseases (and more often only the symptoms) on an individual basis.

Probably the most famous and successful example of the vaccine program was the global eradication of the smallpox virus.

Unfortunately, not all pathogens that cause human diseases can be so easily and totally eliminated. Using only human hosts, causing easily identifiable marks and symptoms that help with tracking the vaccination process, and being transmittable only through close person-to-person contact, the smallpox virus was vulnerable to being isolated and forced into extinction, at least in nature. (No more virus exists, unless of course you count the strains being kept for research purposes.)

The success of the smallpox vaccination efforts has raised the hopes of vaccination as a means of eradicating diseases of all types; yet with raised hopes and expectations, comes disappointment and even reactionary opposition. Diseases such as malaria and the flu can never be eliminated because those pathogens spread so easily, mutate so quickly, and can exist outside human hosts.

But vaccinations have made this world a whole lot safer and healthier. So, it's unfortunate that through cultural differences, through misinformation, through paranoia, through religious resistance, and a whole slew of other reasons, there is still distrust and opposition to vaccines. This recent bbc article briefly reports how 11 Malian men were jailed because they refused to allow their daughters to be vaccinated for polio. These men cited religious beliefs, as well as conspiracy concerns of government forced sterilizations.

An issue I have been wrestling over recently is the general acceptance of science by the layperson. It's seems as if many people, lacking a proper scientific education (read, most people in this world), treat science with an almost mystical reverence/irreverance. They do not fully understand what a particular scientific or medical principle is, and so rely on the "professionals" to tell them what is good and bad, what works and what doesn't, what is healthy and what isn't.

This dependence on another person is dangerous. There are bad scientists, and there are bad "sciences." Just because a person has a medical degree, or has a PhD, or has whatever credential he is flouting, doesn't mean that what he says is the truth. (I remember reading how years ago, a cigarette company prided itself in being the most favored brand among doctors, and used that as their marketing strategy.)

Only with a proper science education, one that teaches analysis and reasoning and skepticism, can an individual determine for himself what is bunk and what might have some merit.

Let's go back to the issue of polio and the polio eradication program.

It's amazing to consider that,

"Until the 1950s, polio crippled thousands of children every year in industrialized countries. Soon after the introduction of effective vaccines in the late 1950s (IPV) and early 1960s (OPV), polio was brought under control, and practically eliminated as a public health problem in industrialized countries."

A dramatic success story, no?

Not quite, because unfortunately polio is still endemic in parts of the developing world, though at an extremely low rate. Maybe that's the most frustrating part of all: that polio is so close to being eliminated from the entire world, and that it is the resistance by indivuals such as the 11 Malian men cited above that is preventing the total global eradication. (Even more alarming is when goverments start resisting these vaccination efforts.) Hence the extreme solution imposed by the Malian goverment: a restriction of individual liberties for the common good of society.

Whether such an aggressive and extreme strategy is ethical or even effective is an issue much too large in scope for this poor blogger. Though maybe effective in the short term, and even if polio is eradicated from the world because of such intensive efforts, these tactics can cause a backlash of opposition that might hinder future medical and vaccination programs for other diseases.

(I do believe that there are situations when the good of the society requires the government to violate invidual freedoms. How this is to be done. . . .)

The good news is that there is great hope with polio. It appears to be manageable and it is a good sign that the polio eradication groups are looking forward to the future after polio is finally eliminated, hopefully within the next five to ten years.

"After poliovirus transmission is stopped in the remaining polio-endemic countries, the future phase of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative aims to achieve certification of global polio eradication, to develop products for the global cessation of oral polio vaccine and to ensure that the infrastructure and knowledge that has been gained through the initiative is transferred to address other important public health programmes."

In other words, with all the knowledge and experience garnered through the global polio eradication efforts, as well as the infrastructure created (such as nutritional distribution channels, disease surveillance, and immunization services), future programs to address other public health issues should be much much easier to manage.

So, when polio is eradicated once and for all, a lot of financial and manpower resources can be diverted to other causes. But as long as polio still exists and is still transmitted from person to person, even only a handful of cases can inefficiently consume a great deal of time and energy and money.

Global Polio Eradication