Prior to September 2013, polio hadn't been found in Israeli sewers since 2002. Recently, the nation's Health Ministry announced that the disease had been found in Jerusalem's sewers. The virus was found in a sewage in Rahat, a smaller city in the Negev desert. From there, the virus spread and appeared in Cairo's sewers. The virus is shed in waste for weeks after contracting polio, even if they were a asymptomatic carriers, so it has the ability to spread easily. No children have been known to be paralyzed by the disease, and only 1 in 200 are paralyzed. The last polio-related paralysis in Israel was in 1988.
Now, Israel is conducting a vaccination drive to reach out to a million children to give them a live vaccine. There are some anti-vaccine activists that are fighting the movement, but they were quickly rejected by Israel's Supreme Court because although the live virus is a little risky, they provide greater protection for the kids. The vaccination is given in the form on 10 drops of the live virus, instead of an injected killed vaccine like they previously did.
Feces spreads many sicknesses, like cholera, and polio is not an exception. The sewers are where the virus was found, and they citizens of Israel should be thankful that it did not spread to the water supply (like the London 1854 outbreak of cholera did) or else there would be a much higher rate of infections. Hopefully, the vaccinations work and polio will be gone again from the city, and eventually eradicated.
This article made me think more about sanitation around the world and how truly important it is, for both health and cleanliness reasons. I appreciate the things in my life that seem normal for middle class Americans, but are a luxury for many people in various places.
Picture- http://www.middleeastexperience.com/
I had no idea polio was spread through feces, which unfortunately can be very devastating if in fact it does reach a water supply. Luckily, like you mentioned, it did not infect Jerusalem's water supply. I can not believe that there are anti-vaccine protestors with a disease that people have been trying to eradicate for years. Though it is terrible that we now see another outbreak maybe if the numbers are limited the world can still hope for a eradication of polio in the near future.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that an outbreak in polio in arising again in Jerusalem after so much time is scary because the people had no idea. Luckily it was caught before any massive damage could be done. I had no idea that feces was the cause of polio, it was a good thing that it never reached the water supply because that would have been awful. I also had no idea that a vaccine could be done through drops instead of a shot. I think it is great how the people are taking precautions by trying to reach out and give vaccines to as many people as they can. Hopefully with few cases recorded, an outbreak won't be in written in the history books.
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