Syria polio outbreak 'could hit Europe,' say experts.

IT'S THE ICE CREAM!!!

So everyone who wasnt vaccinated could get it?

Or

Everyone could get it since vaccines would only last so long. Wasnt that in the 60s where they vaccinated everyone?

Close the f'ing borders already!!

Last week I wrote about my talk with the Sabin Institute’s Dr. Peter Hotez about the threat that the polio outbreak in Syria might pose to the rest of the world. Today, two German doctors writing in The Lancet say they fear that the outbreak in Syria (and the virus being present in Israel) might bleed into Europe.

While most of Europe’s population has been vaccinated against polio, some countries like Bosnia, Ukraine, and Austria have lower rates and therefore might not benefit from the “herd immunity” that widespread vaccination confers. (If you’re wondering when Israel started having new cases of polio, it hasn’t. But wild poliovirus has been located in sewage in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza since February, leading to stringent efforts to make sure no actual cases do occur.) An influx of Syrian refugees, or people with a chain of transmission back to them, could open Pandora’s box: “It might take more than 30 generations of 10 days—nearly one year of silent transmission—before one acute flaccid paralysis case is identified and an outbreak is detected, although hundreds of individuals would carry the infection.” So far, 22 cases have been identified in Syria.

The Hajj could create a global hub of infection if the Islamic world in particular starts seeing outbreaks of rare or neglected diseases.

The United Nations says more than two million are living outside of the country’s borders already. Turkey alone hosts more than half million, with most of those refugees living outside official—and quarantine-able—camps.

“If you look at what’s happening now in Syria, it’s not just polio. With the whole breakdown in infrastructure you’re seeing a rise in measles, because kids aren’t getting their vaccinations. You’re seeing a lot of problems with dengue fever, which is a mosquito-transmitted infection.” And, he continued, you’re seeing problems with “Aleppo evil,” AKA leishmaniasias, which causes terrible ulcers to appear on the skin and face. “Now there’s an estimated more than 100,000 cases of it in Syria,” Hotez recounted, “but it’s also appearing in refugees fleeing Syria and going into the neighboring nations of Turkey and Lebanon.” There is no vaccine for leishmaniasias.

[link to www.psmag.com]

Sounds logical.

Fifties, and polio was wiped out in America.

I still remember the March of Dimes campaign, where
we filled little cards full of dimes, for the Campaign against polio.
I have a friend who contracted it in early childhood,
before the vaccine, and he is still partially paralyzed.

The immunity is lifelong if you got the oral vaccine,
which every kid did in the fifties.

My aunt caught it and is in a wheel chair.