Polio Coming Back On Politics, Mistrust, and War

Kiyotaka ISHIKAWA

It is very rare that people appreciate being kept from contracting polio for life until they find the disease is still scourge in a few developing countries like Pakistan. Polio is one of the pathological history for rich countries in which humans ended up with a victory in fighting for the eradication and the virus locked down into medical laboratories, but some local health workers, international funds, and Bill Gates are still in battles against polio in the least developing countries; nevertheless far from the eradication. What makes polio’s endless nightmare in those specific regions. 

Polio’s natures that make it difficult to exterminate

First of all, contracting polio does not necessarily result in paralysis, but only one per 200 polio infections does, which means the rest look like having a cold or a passing fever while spreading the virus all the time. Second, the virus moves fast. it took only two years for Nigeria’s infections almost eliminated in 2003 to spread over all the country’s regions and then throughout Asia and down to Oceania. These natures are why the virus must be prevented from the epidemic by patient and exhaustive immunizations. 

Socioeconomic reasons that allow polio alive 

Pakistan, one of last three countries with Afghanistan and Nigeria still fighting against polio, is suffering from slow progress over the public immunization program provided by the government with financial and material supports from WHO and some international development banks. The project has been sabotaged by Pakistani Taliban; directly, they attacked and killed some of polio-vaccine deliverers and medical aid workers who consist of local women and teenage girls; indirectly, they rumored that the polio vaccine contains HIV or sterilize children, most of which are groundless and unscientific but powerful in combination with people’s fear of outsiders and general suspicion of anything touched by the West. What’s more, local religious leaders tend to refuse the vaccination offer for children in their village because of religious dogma or belief in the rumors. 

Intensive funding plus something for immediate eradication

Fighting these periodic outbreaks might be more expensive than finishing up polio immediately with intensive funding on effective programs. Rotary International and other groups calculated spending $1 billion annually over the next few years to extinguish polio would save $50 billion over the next 2 decades both in treatments for infected children and in the perpetual hold-the-line vaccination programs (TIME issued Jan 14, 2013). However, this fund is to effectively distribute only through local efforts, such as appealing to rural religious leaders to encourage the care of children as well as individuals to give a reason why the vaccination is worth trusting and why those rumors of vaccine-related side effects are worthless. Not only these human resources but also technical innovations like GPS trackers on vaccine shipment are necessary to prevent them from missing out due to Taliban attacks. Most of these costs arise from information asymmetries between those who try to help, for example, Bill Gates, and those who want help but hardly appreciate it, for example, extremists, religious leaders, and poorly-educated folks. And this is the very target we have to deal with in order to release people from ever lasting fight against polio.