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I'm from Pakistan, and polio eradication has been frustrating to say the least. Polio teams workers still get killed regularly, and in fact, in searching for n

I'm from Pakistan, and polio eradication has been frustrating to say the least. Polio teams workers still get killed regularly, and in fact, in searching for news on polio workers, discovered tragically that one worker was killed just today: https://twitter.com/TNNEnglish/status/1727695070906957889 https://twitter.com/TNNEnglish/status/1727695070906957889 and polio vaccination drives have been delayed in other areas too (separate from the unfortunate incident above) https://twitter.com/MajidBuhair/status/1727755867666452722 https://twitter.com/MajidBuhair/status/1727755867666452722 I mean what can I say of others, back in my own extended family, I have cousins who refused to vaccinate their kids at all, like no vaccine of any kind, and nothing I or anyone can say will change their mind. Thing is that they are not illiterate, they have been to schools, they are just.. stubborn. That means attack vectors exist in all directions. I personally discovered this the hard way when I randomly caught a case of mumps despite having been vaccinated as a child with the MMR vaccine (my dumbass doctor thought I had "mild-tonsillitis" and sent me home with antibiotics) Not sure where I caught it from but thankfully it was mild and I recovered after 10 days of absolute misery. But the moral of the story is, not only is polio unlikely to be eradicated, but even people like me who thought they were covered by vaccination from dutiful parents, are still vulnerable to all these diseases, either as patients or carriers. Our vaccination drives are not forming effective vaccine shields, and that means we have to think of treatment and not prevention as the "first" step of our fights against diseases. ____ > The result came back a month later: it was wild polio type 1, not seen in the continent since 2016. > Sequencing traced its origin to Pakistan, but also revealed that the virus had been circulating for two years undetected — possibly in Malawi, and possibly elsewhere. Because Malawi had no wastewater surveillance at the time, it was impossible to know. If we can re-introduce polio to a place where polio had been eradicated, then I fear one day the world will get frustrated just decide to quarantine us, and I wouldn't know who to blame.

selimthegrim 3y ago
What I saw on Pakistani TV/newspapers was people complaining that government just wanted them to get tika (vaccination) but wouldn’t listen to them about anything else or fix any of their other problems (roads, schools, jobs)
serial_dev 3y ago
> even people like me who thought they were covered by vaccination from dutiful parents, are still vulnerable to all these diseases I was surprised to see that some of the vaccines I thought are rock solid share some traits with the great COVID vaccines: not everyone develops immunity, and the immunity gets worse and worse over time, so you need "boosters" every 5-10 years, and most adults have very little actual protection against the diseases they thought they are vaxxed against. Example, whooping cough: > In children, DTaP protects: > (...) About 7 out of 10 children for five years after the fifth shot. > In adults, Tdap protects: > About 7 in 10 people for the first year after the shot. > About 4 in 10 people for four years after the shot. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/drugs/21639-pertussis-whooping-cough-vaccine https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/drugs/21639-pertussis-... These numbers don't look all that great to me.
nojonestownpls 3y ago
For some added context on the vaccine distrust: > In the early 2010s, the CIA ran a fake vaccination program in Abbottabad, offering free Hepatitis B vaccines to children in an attempt to collect DNA evidence linking Osama bin Laden to the compound where he was suspected of residing. It is unclear how samples were to be collected or how they would lead to bin Laden, but when news of this scheme broke, it added proof to existing conspiracy theories about vaccinations. As a consequence, many local leaders began urging people not to vaccinate their kids, various districts banned vaccination teams, and the Taliban issued a fatwa against vaccination programs. To this day, local leaders rail against vaccines as Western spying programs. - https://www.vox.com/first-person/22256595/vaccine-covid-pakistan-cia-program https://www.vox.com/first-person/22256595/vaccine-covid-paki...
pclmulqdq 3y ago
I have done some work with Kids Risk (quoted in the article) in the past, and it's been an interesting journey to watch Pakistan. The Osama bin Laden raid really screwed the GPEI in 2010 and still has knock-on effects. Thankfully the Pakistani health ministry is finally getting serious about polio again, but it's tough to rebuild that level of trust. The Taliban in Afghanistan also used to be good at vaccination, but that also changed with bin Laden.
- nimish 3y ago
  Yep. They are 100% correct that vaccine drives can be hijacked by geopolitical enemies. It is not an unreasonable fear.
  - pclmulqdq 3y ago
    Before 2010, they didn't used to get hijacked like that despite the risk. There was a bit of a gentleman's agreement about organizations like MSF, UNICEF, and the GPEI. These sorts of NGOs got a lot of access in many countries because they were "off-limits" for espionage. There's not a terrible chance (although I would give it less than a coin flip) that the CIA hasn't developed any assets in any of these medical NGOs since then, but the illusion has been shattered with the one incident.

selimthegrim 3y ago

What I saw on Pakistani TV/newspapers was people complaining that government just wanted them to get tika (vaccination) but wouldn’t listen to them about anything else or fix any of their other problems (roads, schools, jobs)

serial_dev 3y ago

> even people like me who thought they were covered by vaccination from dutiful parents, are still vulnerable to all these diseases I was surprised to see that some of the vaccines I thought are rock solid share some traits with the great COVID vaccines: not everyone develops immunity, and the immunity gets worse and worse over time, so you need "boosters" every 5-10 years, and most adults have very little actual protection against the diseases they thought they are vaxxed against. Example, whooping cough: > In children, DTaP protects: > (...) About 7 out of 10 children for five years after the fifth shot. > In adults, Tdap protects: > About 7 in 10 people for the first year after the shot. > About 4 in 10 people for four years after the shot. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/drugs/21639-pertussis-whooping-cough-vaccine https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/drugs/21639-pertussis-... These numbers don't look all that great to me.

nojonestownpls 3y ago

For some added context on the vaccine distrust: > In the early 2010s, the CIA ran a fake vaccination program in Abbottabad, offering free Hepatitis B vaccines to children in an attempt to collect DNA evidence linking Osama bin Laden to the compound where he was suspected of residing. It is unclear how samples were to be collected or how they would lead to bin Laden, but when news of this scheme broke, it added proof to existing conspiracy theories about vaccinations. As a consequence, many local leaders began urging people not to vaccinate their kids, various districts banned vaccination teams, and the Taliban issued a fatwa against vaccination programs. To this day, local leaders rail against vaccines as Western spying programs. - https://www.vox.com/first-person/22256595/vaccine-covid-pakistan-cia-program https://www.vox.com/first-person/22256595/vaccine-covid-paki...

pclmulqdq 3y ago

I have done some work with Kids Risk (quoted in the article) in the past, and it's been an interesting journey to watch Pakistan. The Osama bin Laden raid really screwed the GPEI in 2010 and still has knock-on effects. Thankfully the Pakistani health ministry is finally getting serious about polio again, but it's tough to rebuild that level of trust. The Taliban in Afghanistan also used to be good at vaccination, but that also changed with bin Laden.

nimish 3y ago
Yep. They are 100% correct that vaccine drives can be hijacked by geopolitical enemies. It is not an unreasonable fear.
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  Before 2010, they didn't used to get hijacked like that despite the risk. There was a bit of a gentleman's agreement about organizations like MSF, UNICEF, and the GPEI. These sorts of NGOs got a lot of access in many countries because they were "off-limits" for espionage. There's not a terrible chance (although I would give it less than a coin flip) that the CIA hasn't developed any assets in any of these medical NGOs since then, but the illusion has been shattered with the one incident.