Bill Gates: Polio will be eradicated this year

[littleman]

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/24/bill-gates-humanity-will-see-its-last-case-of-polio-this-year.html

According to Dr. Wenger, there are only 12 known cases of the wild poliovirus in existence today, in just two countries: Afghanistan and Pakistan. "In the last couple of years, we've seen unprecedented progress. In 2015 we could only find 74 cases; in 2016 we found 37, and then this year so far we've found only 12 in only two countries."

The reason: a mass immunization effort to orally vaccinate 2.5 billion children in 122 countries, bolstered by the 1988 launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

More reading:
https://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Development/Polio
https://www.gatesnotes.com/Polio

[Mackin USA]

A "good news" story 

[ergophobe]

Wow! I was in Rotary and this was one of Rotary's biggest projects.

Is there a "viral reservoir" for polio? Meaning, if eliminated in humans can you stop vaccinating? The flu, for example, has a viral reservoir in birds. Some forms of encephalitis have a reservoir in horses. So you have to be vigilant no matter what happens to human cases

[littleman]

According to Wikipedia, humans are the only known natural hosts for poliovirus.

[Drastic]

Fecking awesome.

And yet, not a peep on mainstream media, its just not sensational enough.

[littleman]

That's a great point Dras.

[buckworks]

<time warp>

Africa declared free of wild polio in 'milestone'

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-53887947

[ergophobe]

Great news.

[littleman]

Those vaccine workers are heroic.  If it happened in Nigeria, maybe one day Afghanistan and Pakistan will be Polio free too?