Type 2 Poliovirus Back From The Dead in Nigeria

[shawmutt]

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/325/5941/660

In 1999, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative scored an unequivocal victory: It wiped one of three serotypes of wild poliovirus, type 2, off the face of the earth, except for samples stored in labs for study or vaccine creation. That triumph left just two foes to battle, poliovirus types 1 and 3, which have continued to put up quite a fight. But now a version of type 2 has returned. Springing back to life from a weakened form of the pathogen used in a vaccine, poliovirus type 2 is causing a runaway outbreak in Nigeria, where types 1 and 3 are also raging. In July, the World Health Organization issued a global alert warning that type 2 poliovirus in Nigeria posed an "increasing risk of international spread." It's a stunning setback for the initiative, now already 9 years past its original deadline for vanquishing the virus...

I wonder how long it will be before it makes a comeback in the US thanks to anti-vax rhetoric and actions.

[shadron]

Not wishing harm on anyone, but perhaps that's what is needed to make people realize the foolishness of their own fears. The real problem, of course, is that it always seems to affect someone else's children.

If I remember correctly, there was also the same sort of thing happening just before smallpox got erased. Several small fires erupting here and there. The difference is that most people had been vaccinated, so there was nowhere for the virus to run to. It sounds like in this case there are pools of susceptable unvaccinated .