It is, but even if your goal is technically unattainable, I think it's sorta the journey that matters to mix metaphors. Getting the number as low as possible matters and remembering the how scary something we take for granted as an out-of-date problem is good on all kinds of levels.
It totally always warmed me up a bit to know that my local Rotarians who where I live anyway are not usually the sweetest types would make this their thing.
“The U.S. case and most of the current outbreaks in Africa (which was declared a polio-free continent in 2020) are linked to vaccine-derived strains of the virus. These strains were originally part of oral polio vaccine. They were shed in human stool from those who'd been inoculated and mutated in the wild, regaining strength and becoming just as dangerous as the original virus.”
Can you cite a researcher that says the problem has anything to do with people refusing the vaccine?
They say very clearly it was the vaccine that was the problem.
Those oral vaccines are very quick to deploy, but still, your solution would require that EVERY PERSON ON EARTH takes the vaccine at the same time and then goes into isolation. And the problem does not stop there. Or how would it work your way? You realise that the virus from the vaccine goes into the sewer and god knows where else and stays contagious?
The only solution the researchers are saying is for everyone to get the expensive shot, which is not using a live virus.
Why do you think going into isolation would be needed? The whole point of the comment you're replying to is that contagious people aren't a problem if there's no one vulnerable for them to spread it to. (Also, that doesn't require everyone vaccinated, just a high percentage).
"(Also, that doesn't require everyone vaccinated, just a high percentage)"
Yes, and that high percentage of vaccinated people was achieved. But ... Polio is still back. So how would be your plan to get everyone not vulnerable with the cheap (and dangerous) vaccine?
One other thing to consider is even if its eradicated - it originally arose from pre-Polio building blocks of some sort, how do you prevent it from re-occurring 'from scratch'?
You keep trying to turn things into binary factors: it either is a high percent or it isn't, 100% protection or bust. That's not how this works.
The percentage of people who need to be vaccinated is based on many factors, including the degree of protection the vaccine provides. There's no one number, it varies based on the totality of the circumstances. One valid interpretation of the setbacks we've encountered in eradicating polio is that number needs to be a bit higher.
"You keep trying to turn things into binary factors"
I am citing the researchers, about the significant problem that prevented eradication of Polio. None of them mentioned antivaxxers as the main reason(or any reason at all), only people here in this thread did, with the original comment implying it was only because of antivaxxers. Which is just not true here.
"One valid interpretation of the setbacks we've encountered in eradicating polio is that number needs to be a bit higher."
So I am not a virologist, but if you think your simple solution and intepretation is a valid one, then it should not be hard, to find an actual virologists who states the same.
And if you cannot, maybe accknowledge, that the problem is a bit more complex. If vaccine refusers would have significantly prevented the rollout of the vaccine to reach significant numbers, it would have been mentioned as a reason. But it wasn't. The campaign alltogether was still likely a huge success, but just not in its goal to eradicate polio.
You've already been provided with all the breadcrumbs required to understand the key concepts. Your failure to engage with this information and follow the trail does not make you a "good skeptic", it makes you obstinate.
Well, I never asked for your breadcumbs, but for a link where an actual virologist is saying anti vaxx people are the problem why polio wasn't eradicated, which is what this thread was about. The article is not saying anything about it and neither is any other literature about it, I have read so far. (not that I have read much about it, but a bit)
And your failure to provide such a link and your fall back to "I provided you with all the breadcrumbs and the rest is up to you" reminds me actually very much of discussions with anti vaxx people I had, you seem to misstake me for. Lots of talk. But nothing solid to back things up. At least nothing, I debated.
So sure, higher vaccination rates might help. I did not debate that. But if it would be as simple as that, then there wouldn't be a problem. Only if the required numbers could not be reached because of anti vaxxers - then you would have an point - but again - I am not aware of an actual virologists making that point in this specific instance.
So you claim you are an biochemist? Great, but I hope you know, that doesn't make you an virologist. Because I am also not an IT security expert, because I studied IT.
I think I have a vague understanding about both (virology and IT security). Enough to know, that both is freakingly complicated and in both sectors there is lots and lots of snake oil and self declared gurus who claim they have the solution.
I rather stick with the experts with some reputation.
> it was the live virus from the cheap vaccine, that mutated and got dangerous again
To the unvaccinated.
We recently had New York’s water tested for poliovirus. Turns out we’re lousy with it [1], most recently by an unvaccinated traveller to Europe bringing it to Long Island [2]. It’s not a problem for the vaccinated because the moment the virus hits the blood it gets zonked. Still it replicates in the gut, which is why it’s in our sewage. (IPV is not sterilising.)
For the majority, also not dangerous to the unvaccinated. Most of the time people use numbers for paralytic polio (death rate of like 20% IIRC) and just call it "polio", which is completely wrong and misleading. The actual numbers for polio in general: https://www.cdc.gov/polio/what-is-polio/index.htm
* 72% of infections are asymptomatic
* 25% of infections are flu-like
* 3% of infections result in something serious (not just paralysis)
* Between 1 in 200 and 1 in 2000 infections (0.5% to 0.05%) result in paralytic polio (which includes weakness, not just fully paralyzed limbs)
Polio is scary because of the visibility of the survivors in that 0.5%, but as a proportion of the population the vast majority of the population won't get that (and polio infects by ingestion, so on top of all this making it less visible, clean food and good hygiene can also prevent infection).
Honest question. What's the "therefore" after this statement? The article mentions there have been 15 cases this year. After hundreds of thousands in 1988. So I can't exactly accept "therefore, vaccines are the problem" with a straight face. What "therefore" was actually intended here?
Unfortunately, there isn't a straightforward "therefore".
The default would be "therefore, we have to accept that very small numbers of people will be harmed for the benefit of the vastly greater number". Only the most diehard utilitarian would love that.
A better answer is "therefore, we need to radically alter the polio strategy, which will be expensive and difficult but would prevent those 15 cases, and maybe eventually eliminate it entirely. Oh, and we don't know how to do it". That makes the diehard utilitarians grumble, and everybody else cranky.
Except that the reason for the comeback of Polio are not anti-vaxx people, but flaws of the original vaccine itself:
"The U.S. case and most of the current outbreaks in Africa (which was declared a polio-free continent in 2020) are linked to vaccine-derived strains of the virus. These strains were originally part of oral polio vaccine"
"Last year there were only 30 cases of wild polio detected while there were nearly 800 cases of vaccine-derived polio. Of the 15 cases reported in the first quarter of 2023, 14 are from strains of the virus that mutated from the oral polio vaccine used in lower-income nations."
> Except that the reason for the comeback of Polio are not anti-vaxx people, but flaws of the original vaccine itself
No, it's both factors together. Without skyrocketing anti-vaxx prevalence, even the vaccine defects would have been self-limiting collateral. Anti-vaxx is what turned a linear problem into an exponentially growing problem.
Ok, so can you cite a reasearcher who shares your opinion?
We are talking about large scale campaigns that were thought to be succesful as they were widely deployed. But the virus simply mutated back to dangerous.
You've over simplified the problem. Yes infinite resources would solve this. However, the cost is astronomical. You require not just the vaccine but the infrastructure to support it in regions that are very far off this level of infrastructure. It will take generations of political stability in these nations to get there. That doesn't look likely anytime soon.
I’m sure you could go and cherry-pick someone who had the opposite opinion somewhere, but in reality this is not a very controversial position. It’s introductory textbook / basic reasoning material (if you consider “basic population dynamics” to be “basic”, that is).
The only thing I can think of that would make what I said wrong would be if the mutation rate of the iatrogenic strain was many orders of magnitude higher than the wild strain, which does not appear to be the case. And even then, I’d say it would be a “maybe” at most.
I'm not sure you read the article. Vaccine-derived cases of polio far outnumber cases of wild polio in the world now. Polio can be created in a lab with publicly available information. This virus WILL be with us forever. The discussion is how to handle that fact.
No liability for the Covid vaccines (yes, I’m aware there are options that in reality almost never pay out) was a huge mistake. How do you repair a breach of trust that severe, outside of massive propaganda campaigns?
And that’s just one small part of how the Covid vaccinations were abysmal in terms of trust building. Blaming the “vaccine hesitant” instead of the politicians and media who lied (directly and indirectly)…further strengthens vaccine hesitancy.
I dont know enough about liability part to comment on it, but most probably neither do you. Vaccine hesitant in general is already a term for those who reject science, so any rational discussion is unfortunately pointless.
How you get there are just pure manipulated emotions of the worst kind, ie fear, and thats not a point any rational scientific argument can fight against and win. If you yourself cant conquer your basic fears, you will always be a puppet to anybody who can play with that, which in real world is tons of pretty bad actors. So there lies your way out, if you actually care about it.
If science can be equated to: "Trust me bro, it works, the man on the TV said so.", perhaps I could buy that this is a good faith take, but those that still refuse to accept that they are suffering from the same blind ignorance is bliss bull** that drives all religions,
I can tell you that with something where the opportunity cost is sterilization of the majority of the planet's population, perhaps you should be skeptical.
You know, as the scientific method dictates?
Perhaps you were too distracted by the fearmongering to notice the promises slip by your very eyes, as day by day the companies that forced this onto the planet changed the script. From 100% effective, and safe, to, what are we at now? I don't think you even know.
Sunken Cost Fallacy is real, and one way or another at least 50% of the planet have it right now regarding the orwell juice.
I wish you the best of luck with your 50th breakout case of, what are you calling it now, flu? (The same flu that was mysteriously extinct for 2 years)...............................................................................................
Despite all the people pointing at AI and shouting, look over there be scurred, you will find that every person you demonized and belittled will be laughing when you come begging for unvaccinated blood.
And to clue you in, no, I don't care if you brigade me to hell.
> In a perfect world, health experts say they'd like everyone would get the more expensive polio shot which is incapable of mutating into a dangerous, circulating virus.
but then...
> Mass immunization campaigns with the more expensive yet safer injectable vaccine, he says, are nearly impossible in some of these places. There simply isn't the infrastructure or trained medical staff to carry out such campaigns.
So, let's try to understand this: if we throw a boatload of money onto this problem, is it possible to eradicate polio using that decent, more expensive vaccine?
or... do we have a theoretical misunderstanding of viruses?
If I'm not mistaken both IPV and OPV is applied to children in national immunization problems of developed countries. So there must be something still missing in IPV.
As far as I know, OPV isn't used in childhood immunization programs in developed countries any more, but it used to be and I think every successful polio eradication program in countries where it's no longer endemic relied on it. There's also some evidence that the inactivated vaccine isn't so good at preventing polio from multiplying in people's guts and spreading to others. Is this a problem in practice? There's probably not any way to know for sure. Also, since polio spreads via the oral-fecal route it's obviously going to spread more effectively in developing countries with poor sewage treatment, so what works in the developed world may not work so well elsewhere anyway.
This would seem to suggest that it's not a problem with the vaccine but with the level of sanitation. The one big relevant difference here is that in developed countries we had flush toilets and sewer systems carrying effluent away from the populace, which may not be true in places that still have polio. So OPV could work but doesn't not because it's ineffective but because the polio-rich effluent produced by vaccinated people isn't being carried away from them effectively.
So maybe the best way to eradicate polio is to build sewers and septic systems.
Is time really the bottleneck? Those easy injectors that are used for epipens can be used by anyone. Perhaps there is an option for something like that.
The problem isn't that it takes a lot of skill to inject someone.
The problem is that it takes a lot of community outreach and organization to have people actually show up for a schedule of 4 shots at different ages. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/polio/public/index.html gives the US schedule, four shots at, "2 months old, 4 months old, 6 through 18 months old, and 4 through 6 years old."
We do a LOT to make sure that people have taken those vaccines. Including checking that you have when you enroll in school.
Keeping something on ice is much easier than storing at a precise temperature range and not freezing it.
The oral polio vaccine (OPV)
----------------------------
Contains live, attenuated virus
Should be frozen. If thawed but still cold--below 8 C (46 F)--refreeze immediately. Place in freezer on arrival. If thawed and warm--above 8 C (46 F) [1]
Maintain continuously in the frozen state--14 C (7 F) or lower. The vaccine may be refrozen. A maximum of 10 freeze-thaw cycles are permissible provided the total cumulative duration of thaw does not exceed 24 hours, and provided the temperature does not exceed 8 C (46 F) during the period of thaw. [1]
Vaccine in liquid state in unopened dispettes may be used for up to 30 days provided it has been stored at 2 -8 C (35 -46 F). A maximum of 10 freeze- thaw cycles are permissible provided the total cumulative duration of thaw does not exceed 24 hours and provided the temperature does not exceed 8 C (46 F) during the period of thaw. [1]
When my partner and I did IVF I got pretty good at giving subcutaneous and intramuscular injections. The medications have to be given at set times every day so there's no way to get them at a doctor's office. I had to mix lyophilized medication and inject it using a hypodermic needle and syringe.
It's not impossible to train lay people to inject most vaccines that I've seen. Does the polio vaccine have to be injected into a specific organ or the bloodstream? Or is it subcutaneous or intramuscular? If the latter this is a solvable problem by organizing aid workers or by forming a small network of competent locals, distributing lyophilized vaccine, training, and having vaccination clinics.
OPV is only applied in developing countries, where setting up an infrastructure with syringes and refrigeration is way harder.
IPV is better in all ways, but OPV still is better than nothing at all, even if it can sometimes mutate back to the wild variant and cause polio... this only occurs however if you are not fully vaccinating the population, as only non-vaccinated children can get infected.
No, IPV is NOT better in all ways. And your link verifies that fact.
Specifically IPV only protects you from serious illness. OPV stops transmission. Therefore where polio is endemic, you need to supply OPV to end transmission. Once polio is no longer endemic, IPV guarantees protection without the additional risks that OPV brings to those around who are immunocompromised or not immunized.
>> So, let's try to understand this: if we throw a boatload of money onto this problem, is it possible to eradicate polio using that decent, more expensive vaccine?
I think the answer might be - let's spend another boatload of money to develop an even better (oral) vaccine that can be distributed to those areas and not cause cases. It may seem a waste to create a new vaccine when the disease is almost gone, but so what? If Bill Gates can use his fortune to end Polio, I'll forgive him for unleashing Windows on the world ;-) OTOH if it makes a comeback that would mean all the money spent so far was for nothing.
Scientists do not have a theoretical misunderstanding of viruses. But the general public often does.
If you gave everyone IPV, anyone who is not immunocompromised will be protected from severe cases of polio. Yay! But polio can still circulate and be looking for new victims. It is hard to tell how big a problem this is until you stop vaccinating.
When people get OPV, it stops them from being part of polio circulation, but can also START polio circulating. Therefore it is needed to stop transmission, but you don't want it if there is no transmission in the community.
We already eradicated 2 forms of polio. But the question is whether we can realistically eliminate the last.
Thats secret services or state interests in general, they have a goal and rest is collateral damage. In some cases its neglible, in some other its massive and borderline genocide. Not that people in general care about it that much, those people dont have US or EU passports to cause much outrage.
I am little bit afraid the best possible outcome would be some lesson for the future, but I dont think its even that. More like a lot of bragging about success part, and thats it. I guess human life in general has completely different value for average HN user like you and me, compared to some military or intelligence high rank.
Can we modify the oral vaccine (virus) to be more resistant to mutation? Specifically, I'm thinking there is a lot of redundancy in the codon table - mapping triplets to amino acids. If we increase the levenshtein distance between the vaccine-virus and the bad one without changing its protein structure it should reduce the likelihood of reverting back in the wild.
I don’t understand how the current strategy can be expected to work. There are two vaccines: IPV and OPV. IPV does not cause outbreaks, but it does not induce sterilizing immunity [0]. So polio (harmless vaccine polio or dangerous polio, vaccine-derived or otherwise) can circulate in IPV-vaccinated populations.
But the US hasn’t administered OPV since 2000 [1]. So polio can circulate in the US without causing symptoms! Anywhere with a sufficient population of people under 23 can be a reservoir of polio.
I don’t understand how the overall strategy can be expected to eradicate polio. Even if the nOPV vaccine were perfect, any reintroduction of polio from any source (wild, old type 2 vaccine-derived, nOPV-derived) could circulate in the US and then be reintroduced elsewhere from here.
I don’t get it. Presumably the US should start administering nOPV just to control its own outbreak.
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[ 0.21 ms ] story [ 111 ms ] threadIn all seriousness though, given the money and effort Rotary has put into this cause, this article has certainly given food for thought.
If 5 people get iatrogenically infected but the infection has nowhere to spread, what do you think happens? Casualties: 5. Polio: gone.
(downvoters: I'm a biochemist)
They say very clearly it was the vaccine that was the problem.
Those oral vaccines are very quick to deploy, but still, your solution would require that EVERY PERSON ON EARTH takes the vaccine at the same time and then goes into isolation. And the problem does not stop there. Or how would it work your way? You realise that the virus from the vaccine goes into the sewer and god knows where else and stays contagious?
The only solution the researchers are saying is for everyone to get the expensive shot, which is not using a live virus.
Yes, and that high percentage of vaccinated people was achieved. But ... Polio is still back. So how would be your plan to get everyone not vulnerable with the cheap (and dangerous) vaccine?
(the vaccine does not give 100% protection btw.)
The percentage of people who need to be vaccinated is based on many factors, including the degree of protection the vaccine provides. There's no one number, it varies based on the totality of the circumstances. One valid interpretation of the setbacks we've encountered in eradicating polio is that number needs to be a bit higher.
As you can see in this chart the level of vaccination, while high in many countries, could be higher. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/polio-vaccine-coverage-of...
I am citing the researchers, about the significant problem that prevented eradication of Polio. None of them mentioned antivaxxers as the main reason(or any reason at all), only people here in this thread did, with the original comment implying it was only because of antivaxxers. Which is just not true here.
"One valid interpretation of the setbacks we've encountered in eradicating polio is that number needs to be a bit higher."
So I am not a virologist, but if you think your simple solution and intepretation is a valid one, then it should not be hard, to find an actual virologists who states the same.
And if you cannot, maybe accknowledge, that the problem is a bit more complex. If vaccine refusers would have significantly prevented the rollout of the vaccine to reach significant numbers, it would have been mentioned as a reason. But it wasn't. The campaign alltogether was still likely a huge success, but just not in its goal to eradicate polio.
And your failure to provide such a link and your fall back to "I provided you with all the breadcrumbs and the rest is up to you" reminds me actually very much of discussions with anti vaxx people I had, you seem to misstake me for. Lots of talk. But nothing solid to back things up. At least nothing, I debated.
So sure, higher vaccination rates might help. I did not debate that. But if it would be as simple as that, then there wouldn't be a problem. Only if the required numbers could not be reached because of anti vaxxers - then you would have an point - but again - I am not aware of an actual virologists making that point in this specific instance.
So you claim you are an biochemist? Great, but I hope you know, that doesn't make you an virologist. Because I am also not an IT security expert, because I studied IT. I think I have a vague understanding about both (virology and IT security). Enough to know, that both is freakingly complicated and in both sectors there is lots and lots of snake oil and self declared gurus who claim they have the solution.
I rather stick with the experts with some reputation.
To the unvaccinated.
We recently had New York’s water tested for poliovirus. Turns out we’re lousy with it [1], most recently by an unvaccinated traveller to Europe bringing it to Long Island [2]. It’s not a problem for the vaccinated because the moment the virus hits the blood it gets zonked. Still it replicates in the gut, which is why it’s in our sewage. (IPV is not sterilising.)
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/12/nyregion/polio-nyc-sewage...
[2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/pdfs/mm7133e2-H.pdf
* 72% of infections are asymptomatic
* 25% of infections are flu-like
* 3% of infections result in something serious (not just paralysis)
* Between 1 in 200 and 1 in 2000 infections (0.5% to 0.05%) result in paralytic polio (which includes weakness, not just fully paralyzed limbs)
Polio is scary because of the visibility of the survivors in that 0.5%, but as a proportion of the population the vast majority of the population won't get that (and polio infects by ingestion, so on top of all this making it less visible, clean food and good hygiene can also prevent infection).
The default would be "therefore, we have to accept that very small numbers of people will be harmed for the benefit of the vastly greater number". Only the most diehard utilitarian would love that.
A better answer is "therefore, we need to radically alter the polio strategy, which will be expensive and difficult but would prevent those 15 cases, and maybe eventually eliminate it entirely. Oh, and we don't know how to do it". That makes the diehard utilitarians grumble, and everybody else cranky.
"The U.S. case and most of the current outbreaks in Africa (which was declared a polio-free continent in 2020) are linked to vaccine-derived strains of the virus. These strains were originally part of oral polio vaccine"
"Last year there were only 30 cases of wild polio detected while there were nearly 800 cases of vaccine-derived polio. Of the 15 cases reported in the first quarter of 2023, 14 are from strains of the virus that mutated from the oral polio vaccine used in lower-income nations."
No, it's both factors together. Without skyrocketing anti-vaxx prevalence, even the vaccine defects would have been self-limiting collateral. Anti-vaxx is what turned a linear problem into an exponentially growing problem.
We are talking about large scale campaigns that were thought to be succesful as they were widely deployed. But the virus simply mutated back to dangerous.
solution: expensive and working vaccine
problem: cost
The only thing I can think of that would make what I said wrong would be if the mutation rate of the iatrogenic strain was many orders of magnitude higher than the wild strain, which does not appear to be the case. And even then, I’d say it would be a “maybe” at most.
And that’s just one small part of how the Covid vaccinations were abysmal in terms of trust building. Blaming the “vaccine hesitant” instead of the politicians and media who lied (directly and indirectly)…further strengthens vaccine hesitancy.
How you get there are just pure manipulated emotions of the worst kind, ie fear, and thats not a point any rational scientific argument can fight against and win. If you yourself cant conquer your basic fears, you will always be a puppet to anybody who can play with that, which in real world is tons of pretty bad actors. So there lies your way out, if you actually care about it.
I can tell you that with something where the opportunity cost is sterilization of the majority of the planet's population, perhaps you should be skeptical. You know, as the scientific method dictates? Perhaps you were too distracted by the fearmongering to notice the promises slip by your very eyes, as day by day the companies that forced this onto the planet changed the script. From 100% effective, and safe, to, what are we at now? I don't think you even know.
Sunken Cost Fallacy is real, and one way or another at least 50% of the planet have it right now regarding the orwell juice.
I wish you the best of luck with your 50th breakout case of, what are you calling it now, flu? (The same flu that was mysteriously extinct for 2 years)............................................................................................... Despite all the people pointing at AI and shouting, look over there be scurred, you will find that every person you demonized and belittled will be laughing when you come begging for unvaccinated blood.
And to clue you in, no, I don't care if you brigade me to hell.
I'll agree he did a horrible job securing the public trust.
but then...
> Mass immunization campaigns with the more expensive yet safer injectable vaccine, he says, are nearly impossible in some of these places. There simply isn't the infrastructure or trained medical staff to carry out such campaigns.
So, let's try to understand this: if we throw a boatload of money onto this problem, is it possible to eradicate polio using that decent, more expensive vaccine?
or... do we have a theoretical misunderstanding of viruses?
If I'm not mistaken both IPV and OPV is applied to children in national immunization problems of developed countries. So there must be something still missing in IPV.
So maybe the best way to eradicate polio is to build sewers and septic systems.
The problem is that it takes a lot of community outreach and organization to have people actually show up for a schedule of 4 shots at different ages. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/polio/public/index.html gives the US schedule, four shots at, "2 months old, 4 months old, 6 through 18 months old, and 4 through 6 years old."
We do a LOT to make sure that people have taken those vaccines. Including checking that you have when you enroll in school.
Keeping something on ice is much easier than storing at a precise temperature range and not freezing it.
Contains live, attenuated virusShould be frozen. If thawed but still cold--below 8 C (46 F)--refreeze immediately. Place in freezer on arrival. If thawed and warm--above 8 C (46 F) [1]
Maintain continuously in the frozen state--14 C (7 F) or lower. The vaccine may be refrozen. A maximum of 10 freeze-thaw cycles are permissible provided the total cumulative duration of thaw does not exceed 24 hours, and provided the temperature does not exceed 8 C (46 F) during the period of thaw. [1]
Vaccine in liquid state in unopened dispettes may be used for up to 30 days provided it has been stored at 2 -8 C (35 -46 F). A maximum of 10 freeze- thaw cycles are permissible provided the total cumulative duration of thaw does not exceed 24 hours and provided the temperature does not exceed 8 C (46 F) during the period of thaw. [1]
Cost of $0.11 - $0.20 per dose. [2]
Refrigerate immediately on arrival. Store at 2 -8 C (35 -46 F). Do not freeze. [1]Should not be frozen. Refrigerate on arrival. [1]
Shelf Life after Reconstitution, Thawing, or Opening - Ampoule: Discard if not used immediately. Vial: Until outdated, if not contaminated. [1]
Cost of $1.50 - $3.79 per dose [3]
[1] https://wonder.cdc.gov/wonder/prevguid/p0000075/p0000075.asp[2] https://www.unicef.org/supply/documents/oral-polio-vaccine-o...
[3] https://www.unicef.org/supply/documents/inactivated-polio-va...
It's not impossible to train lay people to inject most vaccines that I've seen. Does the polio vaccine have to be injected into a specific organ or the bloodstream? Or is it subcutaneous or intramuscular? If the latter this is a solvable problem by organizing aid workers or by forming a small network of competent locals, distributing lyophilized vaccine, training, and having vaccination clinics.
IPV is better in all ways, but OPV still is better than nothing at all, even if it can sometimes mutate back to the wild variant and cause polio... this only occurs however if you are not fully vaccinating the population, as only non-vaccinated children can get infected.
https://polioeradication.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/GPEI...
Specifically IPV only protects you from serious illness. OPV stops transmission. Therefore where polio is endemic, you need to supply OPV to end transmission. Once polio is no longer endemic, IPV guarantees protection without the additional risks that OPV brings to those around who are immunocompromised or not immunized.
I think the answer might be - let's spend another boatload of money to develop an even better (oral) vaccine that can be distributed to those areas and not cause cases. It may seem a waste to create a new vaccine when the disease is almost gone, but so what? If Bill Gates can use his fortune to end Polio, I'll forgive him for unleashing Windows on the world ;-) OTOH if it makes a comeback that would mean all the money spent so far was for nothing.
If you gave everyone IPV, anyone who is not immunocompromised will be protected from severe cases of polio. Yay! But polio can still circulate and be looking for new victims. It is hard to tell how big a problem this is until you stop vaccinating.
When people get OPV, it stops them from being part of polio circulation, but can also START polio circulating. Therefore it is needed to stop transmission, but you don't want it if there is no transmission in the community.
We already eradicated 2 forms of polio. But the question is whether we can realistically eliminate the last.
Even if staff receive training, they may not stay on the job long or may not receive refresher training.
Visit rural Africa and you will understand.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2277145-cias-hunt-for-o...
I am little bit afraid the best possible outcome would be some lesson for the future, but I dont think its even that. More like a lot of bragging about success part, and thats it. I guess human life in general has completely different value for average HN user like you and me, compared to some military or intelligence high rank.
https://www.science.org/content/article/first-polio-cases-li...
But the US hasn’t administered OPV since 2000 [1]. So polio can circulate in the US without causing symptoms! Anywhere with a sufficient population of people under 23 can be a reservoir of polio.
I don’t understand how the overall strategy can be expected to eradicate polio. Even if the nOPV vaccine were perfect, any reintroduction of polio from any source (wild, old type 2 vaccine-derived, nOPV-derived) could circulate in the US and then be reintroduced elsewhere from here.
I don’t get it. Presumably the US should start administering nOPV just to control its own outbreak.
[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22532797/ [1] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/polio/index.html