Polio Threatens Europe as Virus Makes Comeback Amid Wars
By Simeon Bennett - Nov 8, 2013 5:57 AM ET
Polio, the crippling virus driven to the brink of extinction, may return to Europe as regional conflicts undermine a $10 billion eradication campaign.
Polio’s re-appearance in Syria last month after a 14 year absence raises the risk that the virus will hitch a ride on unsuspecting refugees fleeing the country and return to areas, including Europe, that have been polio-free for decades, according to a letter published in the The Lancet medical journal today.
Enlarge image Polio Vaccination
An Afghan health worker administers a polio vaccination on the first day of a vaccination campaign on the outskirts of Jalalabad, Nangarhar province, Afghanistan.
“Polio is making a comeback,” Martin Eichner, a professor at the University of Tuebingen who co-authored the letter to The Lancet, said by phone today. Eichner and a German colleague warned that the vaccine used in the U.S. and Europe offers only partial protection against infection and called for heightened screening of sewage systems near refugee settlements in Turkey and Jordan. Syrian war refugees, moreover, have begun arriving in Western Europe, including Sweden and Germany.
Syria isn’t the only area where poliomyelitis, as the disease is formally known, is rearing its head. It has resurfaced in the Horn of Africa as well as in sewage samples in Israel and Egypt. So far this year, 322 cases have been reported globally, up from last year’s record low of 223. The gain snapped five years of consecutive decline, according to data from the World Health Organization.
I went to school with several kids who caught polio and it was awful to see them when they came back to school. Then years later I learned about “post polio” and I know they are suffering again.