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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPakistan polio outbreak puts global eradication at risk
A Taliban ban on vaccination is exacerbating a serious polio outbreak in Pakistan, threatening to derail dramatic progress made this year towards wiping out the disease worldwide, health officials say.
Health teams in Pakistan have been attacked repeatedly since the Taliban denounced vaccines as a Western plot to sterilize Muslims and imposed bans on inoculation in June 2012.
In North Waziristan, a region near the Afghan border that has been cordoned off by the Taliban, dozens of children, many under the age of two, have been crippled by the viral disease in the past six months.
And there is evidence in tests conducted on sewage samples in some of the country's major cities that the polio virus is starting to spread beyond these isolated pockets and could soon spark fresh polio outbreaks in more densely populated areas.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/18/us-polio-pakistan-idUSBRE99H0DE20131018?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews
Aslo
Suspected polio cases found in Syria for first time in 14 years
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/19/us-syria-crisis-polio-idUSBRE99I07220131019
LiberalEsto
(22,845 posts)I was shocked when the pediatrician told me my older daughter, born in 1983, didn't need a polio vaccination.
Mariana
(14,858 posts)LiberalEsto
(22,845 posts)I was told polio vaccinations were no longer necessary. I think that was shortsighted and stupid. People have forgotten how awful polio is.
SamYeager
(309 posts)SamYeager
(309 posts)And ABC gave a prominent anti-vaxxer a forum to spew her idiocy, too.