Eradication of polio - please explain

[nia82]

Hi guys,

I was wondering how they plan on eradicating polio: they only vaccinate children, but not adolescents nor adults. So only the young are immune for a certain period (if at all). How does that provide herd immunity? Can adults not contract polio? It just makes no sense to me! What's the reasoning behind that please? This thought has been bugging me for weeks now; I mean if you want complete herd immunity wouldn't you immunize the entire population???

Thanks

[moondiapers]

Originally Posted by nia82

Hi guys,

I was wondering how they plan on eradicating polio: they only vaccinate children, but not adolescents nor adults. So only the young are immune for a certain period (if at all). How does that provide herd immunity? Can adults not contract polio? It just makes no sense to me! What's the reasoning behind that please? This thought has been bugging me for weeks now; I mean if you want complete herd immunity wouldn't you immunize the entire population???

Thanks

I have a dear friend that caught polio by changing the diaper of her newly vaxed baby Or just plain sharing bodily fluids...kisses etc. The old live vax was actually spreading the disease.

[PaigeC]

This is the WHOs strategic polio eradication plan.

http://www.polioeradication.org/cont...4stratplan.pdf

[Deborah]

There is only one infectious disease, smallpox, which is officially eradicated. Smallpox is an interesting case study. Why and how was it cleared?

First, smallpox is easy to spot and not that easy to spread. Once people are infectious they are usually too sick to be running around. So once people understood about quarantine and rubber gloves and masks and cleanliness, it was possible to isolate infectious cases and stop spreading the disease.

Second, contrary to popular opinion, the vaccine did not eradicate the disease. It could even have been accomplished without the vaccine, but the vaccine probably made it easier. Because the vaccine is quite dangerous, mass vaccination was unpopular, even with the medical folk. So at some point, some genius came up with a plan. Each time there was an outbreak they would employ two measures: 1) get in the medical team, quarantine the sick and exposed and stop the spread and 2)vaccinate in a ring around the outbreak.

This worked.

I don't think they'll be able to eradicate any other diseases any time soon.

[Emmeline II]

Read here:
http://www.mothering.com/discussions...d.php?t=356355
http://www.mothering.com/discussions...d.php?t=252526
http://www.mothering.com/discussions...86&postcount=4

http://www.mothering.com/discussions...play.php?f=113

[ZoeyZoo]

IPV doesn't affect transmission (OPV does but is not used in the US). I don't understand how a vax can create herd immunity if it does not prevent transmission. Maybe someone can explain this to me.

[Marnica]

Originally Posted by ZoeyZoo

IPV doesn't affect transmission (OPV does but is not used in the US). I don't understand how a vax can create herd immunity if it does not prevent transmission. Maybe someone can explain this to me.

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