Mutant Polio Virus Spreads in Nigeria

(AP)  Polio, the dreaded paralyzing disease stamped out in the industrialized world, is spreading in Nigeria. And health officials say in some cases, it's caused by the vaccine used to fight it.

In July, the World Health Organization issued a warning that this vaccine-spread virus might extend beyond Africa. So far, 124 Nigerian children have been paralyzed this year - about twice those afflicted in 2008.

The polio problem is just the latest challenge to global health authorities trying to convince wary citizens that vaccines can save them from dreaded disease. For years, myths have abounded about vaccines - that they were the Western world's plan to sterilize Africans or give them AIDS. The sad polio reality fuels misguided fears and underscores the challenges authorities face using a flawed vaccine.

Nigeria and most other poor nations use an oral polio vaccine because it's cheaper, easier, and protects entire communities.

But it is made from a live polio virus - albeit weakened - which carries a small risk of causing polio for every million or so doses given. In even rarer instances, the virus in the vaccine can mutate into a deadlier version that ignites new outbreaks.

The vaccine used in the United States and other Western nations is given in shots, which use a killed virus that cannot cause polio.

So when WHO officials discovered a polio outbreak in Nigeria was sparked by the polio vaccine itself, they assumed it would be easier to stop than a natural "wild" virus.

They were wrong.

In 2007, health experts reported that amid Nigeria's ongoing outbreak of wild polio viruses, 69 children had also been paralyzed in a new outbreak caused by the mutation of a vaccine's virus.

Back then, WHO said the vaccine-linked outbreak would be swiftly overcome - yet two years later, cases continue to mount. They have since identified polio cases linked to the vaccine dating back as far as 2005.

It is a worrying development for officials who hope to end polio epidemics in India and Africa by the end of this year, after missing several earlier deadlines. "It's very disturbing," said Dr. Bruce Aylward, who heads the polio department at the World Health Organization.

This year, the number of polio cases caused by the vaccine has doubled: 124 children have so far been paralyzed, compared to 62 in 2008, out of about 42 million children vaccinated. For every case of paralysis, there are hundreds of other children who don't develop symptoms, but pass on the disease.

When Nigerian leaders suspended polio vaccination in 2003, believing the vaccine would sterilize their children and infect them with HIV, Nigeria exported polio to nearly two dozen countries worldwide, making it as far away as Indonesia.

Nigeria resumed vaccinations in 2004 after tests showed the vaccine was not contaminated with estrogen, anti-fertility agents or HIV.

Experts have long believed epidemics unleashed by a vaccine's mutated virus wouldn't last since the vaccine only contains a weakened virus strain - but that assumption is coming under pressure. Some experts now say that once viruses from vaccines start circulating they can become just as dangerous as wild viruses.

"The only difference is that this virus was originally in a vaccine vial," said Olen Kew, a virologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The oral polio vaccine used in Nigeria and elsewhere contains a mild version of the live virus. Children who have been vaccinated pass the virus into the water supply through urine or feces. Other children who then play in or drink that water pick up the vaccine's virus, which gives them some protection against polio.

But in rare instances, as the virus passes through unimmunized children, it can mutate into a strain dangerous enough to ignite new outbreaks, particularly if immunization rates in the rest of the population are low.

Kew said genetic analysis proves mutated viruses from the vaccine have caused at least seven separate outbreaks in Nigeria.

Though Nigeria's coverage rates have improved, up to 15 percent of children in the north still haven't been vaccinated against polio. To eradicate the disease, officials need to reach about 95 percent of the population.

Nigeria's vaccine-linked outbreak underlines the need to stop using the oral polio vaccine as soon as possible, since it can create the very epidemics it was designed to stop, experts say. WHO is researching other vaccines that might work better, but none is on the horizon.

Until a better vaccine is ready, WHO and U.S. CDC officials say the oral vaccine is the best available tool to eradicate polio and that when inoculation rates are nearly 100 percent it works fine.

"Nigeria is almost a case study in what happens when you don't follow the recommendations," Kew said.

Since WHO and partners began their attempt to rid the world of polio in 1988, officials have slashed the disease's incidence by more than 99 percent.

But numerous deadlines have been missed and the number of cases has been at a virtual standstill since 2000. Critics have also wondered whether it is time to give up, and donors may be sick of continuing to fund a program with no clear endgame.

"Eradication is a gamble," said Scott Barrett, an economist at Columbia University who has studied polio policies. "It's all or nothing ... and there is a very real risk this whole thing may fall apart."

Aside from Nigeria, polio persists in a handful of other countries, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Chad, Angola and Sudan.

Aylward agreed the Nigeria situation was another unwelcome hurdle, but was confident eradication was possible. "We still have a shot," he said. "We're throwing everything at it including the kitchen sink."

[Mindanoiha]

In 1977, Dr Jonas Salk who developed the first polio vaccine, testified along with other scientists, that mass inoculation against polio was the cause of most polio cases throughout the USA since 1961. (Science 4/4/77 "Abstracts").

[capricorn45]

So, the vaccine is causing the disease they supposedly want to eradicate, but people who refuse the vaccine are put in jail!

In Nigeria, avoiding a shot could mean going to jail
Posted By Rachel Brown Friday, July 29, 2011
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/07/29/in_nigeria_avoiding_a_shot_could_mean_going_to_jail

This is just more colonialism disguised as philantrophy, if not outright genocide.

Death by Vaccination: The Gates Foundation and the New Eugenics
JULY 5, 2011
By Gary Null & Richard Gale
http://www.garynull.com/home/tag/bill-gates

[bitterbonker]

"According to the World Health Statistics Annual of 1973-1976, there had been a steady decline in infectious diseases in most developing countries regardless of vaccines administered. They believe that the diseases disappeared as a result of improved sanitation, improved water supplies, improved personal hygiene & better nutrition. In addition, diseases for which there were no vaccines also declined dramatically. From 1850 to 1940, diseases had declined by 90% & were at an all time low, just when vaccines were being introduced.

"Another great study that comes up with the same conclusion, Medical Measures and the Decline of Mortality by St. Martin?s Press, New York states 'It is estimated that at most, 3.5% of the total decline in mortality since 1900 could be ascribed to medical measures introduced for the diseases considered.' Furthermore, 'medical measures were introduced several decades after marked decline had already set in and having no detectable influences in most instances.' "

http://www.newswithviews.com/Tocco/mary1.htm

[compound19]

Check out Project Coast South Africa!

[toldyouso21]

Only an idiot (not an expert) would believe a weakened or attenuated strain would be less virulent than the wild strain. A weakened strain has less of an MOI (multiplicity of infection) but it is only weakened as a vaccine, if it causes the disease, when it is passed on, it is no longer weakened because the radiation or products used to weaken the master seed is not used to weaken future generations. Because of this, why would anyone in their right mind think that a weakened virus would stay weakened if it caused the disease. That is like taking a sip of water and assuming due to that one sip, no water is ever needed to be drunk again. The idea of such idiocy boggles the mind.

[bitterbonker]

Yeah, plus they make the vaccines by growing the virus in chicken embryos or even the dissected organs of human fetuses (diploid cells). The polio vaccine. The polio vaccine was made by weakening the polio virus by passing it thru mashed monkey kidneys, which in the '50s contaminated the vaccine with Simian Virus 40 (SV-40). Recently, some polio vaccines have been made using cells from calf fetuses that were possibly infected with BSE (Mad Cow disease).

Sources:

http://www.bluelotusayurveda.com/vaccinations.html

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2000/12/24/vaccine-production.aspx

[ibsteve2u]

Take a broken health care system, combine it with an ever growing pool of Americans who have no access to health care, and throw in single case of a vaccine-resistant disease...

[toldyouso21]

We already have that--we presently have drug resistant syphillis, gonnorhea, staph, TB, meningitis...etc. There is no such thing as a vaccine resistant disease. There may be drug resistant diseases (bacteria or mycopathogens) but due to how vaccines work there is no such thing as a vaccine resistant disease.

A vaccine is nothing more than material from the actual virus that is introduced to a person so their body will recognize the real pathogen if it ever shows up and immediately deal with it. The stuff that the body recognizes are called antigens. The stuff your body releases to combat foreign antigens are called antibodies.

The viral antigens can be given by introducing a killed virus, a live but weakened virus or by introducing bits of viral tissue to a healthy person. The body then takes note of the virus, catalogs it and attacks immediately if it meets it again. The way virus kill is to go into the body and confuse it, and slow down or not even cause the body to attack it--when this happens by the time the body becomes aware, the person is too compromised to recover.

So vaccines give a body a heads up to a certain viral antigens. These are the identifying markers of any foreign, living substance. So there is no such thing as a vaccine resistant disease as any part of a virus can be used to make a vaccine, but there are virus that mutate enough to prevent an effective vaccine from being made--because by the time the body recognizes the antigens, the virus changes it antigen makeup.

[dissturbbed]

lol..they have already tried that futile approach

[guest173]

they should stop being so cheap and give them the best vaccine

[Sloughfoot]

WHO/National Public Health-have many attributes in common. Operation by a board or Commission of "One size fits all" mentality who do not want to be bothered by individual needs and the tradgic results of "Economized Health Care". We now have unleashed a mutant polio strain that has dire consequences for Polio containment world wide because those few who rule "WHO" refused to listen.

[MPHgrad]

Thank you Sloughfoot!

[wtcmedic911]

in my entire lifetime i have always heard of the plight of africa. its always one thing or another. however often times they can do for themselves and dont. or destroy what has been given to them. such as farming equipment, irrigation and such. HOWEVER at least NGO's should be allowed if desired to provide care to those that cannot help themselves.