The wild poliovirus is about to go extinct. In 2015, only 74 new cases were reported or 80 percent less than in 2015. Furthermore, these cases were contained in two countries: Afghanistan and Pakistan. Next year, wild polio could disappear from the face of this planet, a milestone achievement in medicine.
There are three types of wild poliovirus: WPV1, WPV2 and WPV3. Only WPV1 is considered still at large in the world, the other two having been eradicated.
It looks like it won’t be long until WPV1 is out of the picture completely, too. There were only 15 new cases of polio this year reported until May 4, 12 of which were WPV1 and the other three were vaccine-derived (a strain from Laos).
Judging by this trendline, it seems like WPV1 could become extinct as soon as 2017. There’s a three-year waiting period before a virus can be considered extinct, so effectively polio might be eradicated by 2020.
“With progress made during 2015–2016 toward interruption of WPV transmission in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the world is closer than ever to the eradication of polio. Continued cooperation between the two countries is needed for this goal to be reached. In addition, the greater worldwide community needs to remain vigilant in implementing the Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s Polio Eradication and Endgame Strategic Plan for 2013–2018 to end WPV and VDPV transmission,” CDC researchers write in a report.
Polio (will be) history
Polio has existed for at least as long as humanity has, but only since the Victorian times did it become a major health hazard. The disease, known as poliomyelitis, causes spinal and respiratory paralysis, can kill and is incurable.
The disease is highly infectious, spreading by direct contact between people. Contact with nasal and oral secretions, as well as contaminated feces, is how patients get polio in the first place most of the time. The virus enters the mouth, multiplying along the way to the digestive tract, where it further replicates.
Throughout history, there were a number of outbreaks. For instance, in 1916, New York reported 9,000 cases and 2,343 deaths. In 1952, the U.S. experienced a record 57,628 cases. Most people, particularly children, recover from polio, but many survivors became disabled for life.
Since polio is incurable, prevention is the only way to contain the disease. The big breakthrough came in 1952 when Dr. Jonas Salk developed the first effective vaccine against the virus. Mass public vaccinations swiftly followed and the effects didn’t wait to show: in the US alone cases fell from 35,000 in 1953 to 5,300 in 1957.
By 1988, polio had disappeared from the US, UK, Australia and much of Europe but remained prevalent in more than 125 countries. In 1994, the last wild polio case was recorded in the Americas region. In 2012, polio remained endemic in only four countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nigeria. In 2015, Nigeria and India were scratched from the list.
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This is one of the most successful stories in medicine, ever. Which is why I’m always flabbergasted by those who claim that vaccines don’t work or, most assinine, that they’re a ploy to infect the youth and destroy humanity. In Pakistan, the most hateful anti-vaxxers aren’t brainwashed soccer moms, but religious fanatics who claim polio vaccines are “conspiracy of Jews and Christians to make Muslims impotent and stunt the growth of Muslims.” Since June 2012, 54 health workers and security personnel who were aiding in an anti-polio campaign in Pakistan were killed by the Taliban who have a ban against the ongoing vaccine program.
Polio cases have decreased by over 99% since 1988, from an estimated 350 000 cases to 15 in 2016. What more proof do you want? There’s a vaccine for ignorance, too. It’s called education. Hopefully, those who have second thoughts about vaccines might be swayed in a more sensible position after they read about it.
This is a REALLY BIG deal! I am old enough to remember visiting school mates who had Polio and were being kept alive in iron lungs back when I was in third and forth grade. NO vaccinations cause Autism. Anti-vaxers represent a threat to the eradication of diseases like Polio, small pox, measles and whooping cough through inoculations. It is up to the rest of us to educate them but barring that, to pass and enforce laws to compel anti-vaxers to have their children vaccinated for the good of humanity. In regards to Polio; Sadly, world health workers are giving their lives to vaccinate children in Afghanistan and Pakistan because ignorant, fearful, superstitious tribes in the regions believe they are CIA spies or attempting to infect children with disease. So this progress is being made with a high price.
This is the cliched pro-vaccine propaganda regurgitated over and over all about the place. The stats provided are not only subject to question but presented in a twisted way – something that has been debunked multiple times by critics of vaccines. (1) 350 000 cases in 1988? Where’s the proof and how many of these cases were in previously unvaccinated individuals? No info on that. (2) If polio vaccine is so effective why were there so many alleged cases in 1988 when the vaccine has been in wide circulation since 1950s? (3) Contrary to the claim in this article, polio cases were reported in the west, especially US until the Sabin vaccine was practically stopped because it WAS CAUSING POLIO. But for the vaxxers, it didn’t count as polio because it was the more conveniently called “vaccine-associated paralytic poliomyelitis” (VAPP) – the epidemics of which have ruined the lives of Nigerian, Indian, and more recently Ukrainian and Laos children. (4) What was the rate of decline of polio at the time when the vaccine was introduced? And what criteria were used to diagnose back then? If you don’t know the answer, educate yourself on the science and stats as well as medical diagnoses.
As someone who has exposed the bogus claims of vaccine success and safety I find it amusing that such propaganda remains in mainstream media as well as sites like these that work by censorship and selective “science” expertise. So I am saving this comment to post on my blog along with the link to this post – in case my comment is censored out by the so-called editorial policies of sites whose masters run the pharma cartels.
I also grew up in the 50s and remember the bad old days before vaccines. I also remember how desperate parents were to get them for us kids. I also remember the death tolls – it was annually in the hundreds of thousands – per disease.
Ernest Dempsey………. You, sir, are totally deluded and very dangerous. Thankfully, your opinion is an isolated anomaly but such ignorance represents a threat to society and must be removed like a cancerous tumor before it can grow. Scientists need to develop a vaccine for self-imposed ignorance, perhaps by causing autism in fools.
You are right Michael – I am very dangerous – dangerous to the ignorant and corrupt medical-media mafia narrative who are making billions off the ignorance and stupidity of folks like you. Thankfully my opinion is not an anamoly and more and more people in and out of media are waking up to the pseudoscience and open corruption of the vaccine industry. If autism equates folly then congrats you are the chief victim here and for that you an take pleasure in being vaxxed. lol
LOL back at you, Ernest Dempsey. The proof you are wrong resides in the fact that vaccines have eradicated (or nearly so) numerous diseases that killed countless people every year in the past. Even presuming for a moment that some developed autism or other side effects along the way (and I see NO evidence this is true), the overall positive impact upon human society is impossible to ignore because plainly, far more people would have died without vaccines.
All claims, no evidence. So you are just regurgitating the propaganda and puking it ‘out of mind’.