If enough people were vaccinated, polio could be wiped out in the world, similar to how smallpox was stopped.
But alas the anti vax hysteria of the west is picked up by ignorant relgious leaders (Most but not all Muslim) who tell their people that the vaccines are poison.
This has been going on for quite awhile, and was actually started by the KGB. Then some Brits saw cases of HIV in areas where polio vaccine had been given in central Africa, and blamed polio vaccine, not the fact that (serum testing showed) that the virus had been there for decades, but spread mainly via truck drivers and prostitues along the new pan African highway. But never mind; The anti vax hysteria gets you to feel like a hero.
Alas, the overhyping of covid vaccine and the censorship of side effects have resulted in more anti vax hysteria, and ignorant people just don't see the difference between one vaccine and another completely different vaccine.
The mRNA vaccines might have a lot of problems, and that is another discussion altogeher. But other vaccines using older techniquies also showed problems with covid which were similar to side effects of covid, due to the spike protein part of the virus.
Well, anyway, the anti polio vaccine ideas in Muslim countries have been a major cause of it's spread (and to make things worse, the mutation of the OPV virus into unvaccinated population caused epidemics.
This resulted in more suspicion of vaccine, and so a successful and easily given oral vaccine has had to be replaced with an expensive injection, requiring training in giving shots, expenses for disposable syringes (so not to spread HIV), etc.
Stratagy page mentions the problems with polio vaccine in their essay on Nigeria's problems.
In 2020 the government had prematurely declared Nigeria polio free. Because of poor reporting by health officials in several states, it turned out that Nigeria had not been eradicated. This comes after three years with no known new cases of polio.
actually no: there were cases, but they just weren't being resported.
In those two nations (Afghanistan and Pakistan) the same Moslem intolerance and paranoia that delayed Nigeria from becoming polio-free are in play....
This polio free effort began in the 1980s and a decade ago ran into problems in northern Nigeria, where conservative Islamic clergy and Boko Haram spread the rumor that the polio vaccine was actually a plot to poison Moslem children. This has delayed eradication of polio in Nigeria for nearly a decade.
Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria all share the same problems of poor public health care systems and some lingering resistance to vaccination preached by a few hardcore Moslem preachers. As long as these three nations still have some polio infections it is possible for migrants, especially illegals, to take the virus to virus-free nations.
It's not just Muslim preachers: Catholic bishops in one African country opposed giving tetanus vaccine to pregnant women because it contained "HCG" which supposedly caused miscarriages or stopped women from becoming pregnant.
This same rumor was being spread back in the 1990s in the Philippines, so it's not a new claim.
And naive westerners wondered why pregnant women needed a course of anti tetanus vaccine,
Uh, neonatal tetanus:
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Sigh.
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