this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2024
39 points (86.8% liked)
Asklemmy
43856 readers
1784 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy π
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I would love to be proved wrong, and see the sources describing recent polio cases in england!
Would indeed be apt!
A direct case was not reported in the UK in recent years, but evidence of very likely polio transmission was found in sewage samples two years ago:
https://nationalpost.com/news/world/polio-virus-found-in-uk-sewage-samples-risk-to-public-low
A similar situation happened in New York where an actual case was found a month later:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/polio-found-new-york-wastewater-state-assesses-virus-spread-2022-08-01/
The short of it is, when vaccination rates fall, Polio can be reintroduced via transmission of the live virus found in the oral vaccine, usually taken in poorer countries. If someone were to take the oral vaccine and then immediately travel to a country with lessening vaccination rates, like is currently happening in the west due to the spread of right-wing conspiracy mongering, the live virus still in the vaccinated individual has a low but not zero chance of propagating to the unvaccinated or immune-compromised population there. Samples containing these vaccine-derived viruses are found a few times per year in most places, and it's a weaker virus so often it leads to no symptoms, but in very rare instances it does take hold with the expected effect:
https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease-outbreak-news/item/2022-DON366
Despite individual cases of polio turning up, either via direct reporting or evidence found elsewhere, it would still be correct to describe polio as being "eradicated" in these countries, at least currently. Nobody is confused by this or demands reclassification of the status of polio.
So, none. Traces by RNA amplification in sewages. But there very well might be a right wing conspiracy.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/06/22/1106711204/polio-found-in-u-k-for-the-first-time-in-nearly-40-years-heres-what-it-means
Not an active case, but youβre moving the goalposts in between comments with that criteria.