Why do some people think that oral polio vaccines are now causing nearly all cases of paralytic polio?
The usual suspects...
Are Oral Polio Vaccines Causing Nearly All Cases of Paralytic Polio?
Surprisingly, in this case it's true!
Wait, what?
Yes, it's true that there are now more cases of vaccine derived polio than wild polio.
"Three decades ago, polio paralyzed or killed almost 1,000 children every day. Today, 99 per cent of those cases have been eliminated."
An open letter to the world’s children
But that's only because polio vaccines have done such a good great job of containing and controlling wild polio outbreaks!
"Now that wild poliovirus cases have been subdued, the importance of controlling vaccine-derived outbreaks is becoming a bigger challenge. However, the risk of vaccine-derived polio strains is only a significant threat in unvaccinated communities, where the attenuated virus is allowed to spread from person to person for long enough that it can mutate, usually over a period of 12-18 months."
Polio in a Post-Vaccine World: The Consequences of Anti-Vaccination Sentiments
Vaccines that would even help contain and control these vaccine-derived cases if everyone would simply get vaccinated and protected!
"Since the launch of GPEI, polio cases have decreased by more than 99%. In addition, polio vaccines have prevented an estimated 20 million cases of paralysis in children since 1988."
Global Polio Eradication
After all, these 'vaccine-derived' cases of polio don't come from folks who were vaccinated.
"The small risk of cVDPVs pales in significance to the tremendous public health benefits associated with OPV. Every year, hundreds of thousands of cases due to wild polio virus are prevented. Well over 10 million cases have been averted since large-scale administration of OPV began 20 years ago."
Poliomyelitis: Vaccine derived polio
Again, vaccine-derived polio occurs in unvaccinated people who have no immunity or protection from polio and get exposed to a vaccine-derived strain of polio that was allowed to mutate.
Misinformation About Polio Vaccines
Do you now understand why we are seeing more vaccine-derived cases of polio than wild-type? And why it is ironic that anti-vax folks push misinformation and propaganda about polio vaccines?
Think about it...
The only way we are going to be able to eventually stop using oral polio vaccines is if we stop vaccine derived polio - by getting more people vaccinated! And that's the path to eradicating polio all together.
Still anti-vaccine folks have actually been pushing this idea about polio vaccines for a while now.
It's one of the reasons that we haven't yet eradicated polio...
- Fighting polio vaccine misinformation
- Vaccine Misinformation Management Guide
- Understanding the impact of polio vaccine disinformation in Pakistan
- Polio vaccine misinformation on social media: challenges, efforts, and recommendations
- Ingraining Polio Vaccine Acceptance through Public Service Advertisements in the Digital Era: The Moderating Role of Misinformation, Disinformation, Fake News, and Religious Fatalism
- Polio is the next front in the disinformation wars
- Polio in a Post-Vaccine World: The Consequences of Anti-Vaccination Sentiments
- Malawi fights misinformation around the current polio vaccination in the midst of COVID-19 and cholera emergencies
- Misinformation hurts effort to immunize children in Democratic Republic of the Congo
But that doesn't mean you have to let misinformation about polio vaccines harm our children and get in the way of our eradicating polio, something that we are so very close to achieving.
Ironically, the only way we are going to be able to stop using oral polio vaccines and and eliminate vaccine derived polio is if more people get vaccinated.
More on Misinformation About Polio Vaccines
- When Was the Last Case of Polio in the United States?
- The Myth That Polio Only Went Away Because They Changed the Way It Was Diagnosed
- Polio Survivor Stories
- The Myth That Polio Only Went Away Because They Changed the Way It Was Diagnosed
- Did Modern Ventilators Replace the Iron Lung for Folks with Polio?
- Is There a DDT-Polio Connection?
- Variant Poliovirus (cVDPV)
- Poliomyelitis: Vaccine derived polio
- An open letter to the world’s children
- Fighting polio vaccine misinformation
- Global Polio Eradication
- The endgame: What will it take to eradicate polio?
- Maurice Hilleman, the polio vaccine, SV40, and cancer
- The History of the Polio Vaccine
