Author Topic: UN in West Africa starts anti-polio drive (Read 113 times)

Rugged Monk · « **on:** February 14, 2009, 04:54:49 AM »

W Africa starts anti-polio drive

Previous vaccination efforts have been met with suspicion
An operations has started to vaccinate some 20 million children in West Africa over the next month in a major effort to eradicate polio.

Hundreds of thousands of volunteers have been mobilised in eight countries to help administer the oral vaccine.

The UN Children's Fund is working with the World Health Organisation and various health ministries to try to rid Africa of the incurable virus.

It spreads easily in densely populated countries with poor sanitation.

The operation has started in Ghana, where almost five million children are to be immunised in three days.

Seven other countries are to follow suit this month.

Rumours

BBC West Africa correspondent Will Ross says great strides have been made in the fight against polo in recent years.

But the virus which causes paralysis has not been eradicated in West Africa partly because previous efforts at vaccination have been met with suspicion by some religious leaders in Nigeria.

The battle against polio received a major set-back in 2003 when a vaccination programme in northern Nigeria had to be abandoned after rumours spread that the polio vaccine caused Aids and was part of a western plot to sterilise Muslim girls.

As a result the virus then spread and re-infected 23 countries which had earlier been declared polio free.

Ghana had recorded no new cases of polio for five years until just a few months ago when eight cases were identified - the children between the ages and one and four were all paralysed.

The ongoing effort to eradicate polio is not cheap - in Ghana alone $2.5m (£1.7m) will be spent over the next three days.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7884992.stm

Þŕiņçë · « **Reply #1 on:** February 14, 2009, 09:39:06 AM »

2.5mill pssssh. That aint shit!!!!

virtuoso · « **Reply #2 on:** February 15, 2009, 02:55:05 AM »

"rumours" lol they shoot them up with mercury and then say but mercury in vaccines is harmless and anyone that thinks differently is an evil conspiracy theorist, why we just want to lovingly help the children, we don't want to harm them.

Rugged Monk · « **Reply #3 on:** February 15, 2009, 03:22:33 AM »

So all those people who volunteer their time and medical expertise to go help in impoverished countries, in their hearts, beneath their loving exterior hold a dark pagan nature worshiping directive for malice, murder and pain?

virtuoso · « **Reply #4 on:** February 15, 2009, 03:41:26 AM »

Nope, what I am saying is that many studies have linked these vaccines to brain damage and other horrible effects but what they are being told is it's fine it;s harmless. This is a very similar example to that of mercury used in fillings, on the one hand the world health organisation has measured the consumption of mercury fillings against other environmental factors, as well as consuming fish etc. From memory, 0.3 mg per day are consumed from environmental factors, 2.3 mg are consumed from fish and 3-15mg are consumed each day from mercury fillings in addition to which Norway has recently banned it to. Now on the other hand, well meaning good dentists are still repeating the mantra that environmental factors play a bigger role in mercury consumption than mercury fillings, it's a harmless amount consumed. So from what I can ascertain it's the professional bodies such as the british dental association who are giving them this advice and of course they trust it. When I mentioned to my dentist about the who findings he wasn't having any of it and said "well i can safely assure you i have never seen any information to suggest it's dangerous. So that's a prime example of the way in which so many good people are suspended in disbelief. So of course I don't think your average doctor is a bad person has evil intent but what I do think is they are embedded into the system, so trusting of it, that they immediately repel any suggestion that what they are doing might be a terrible ill.