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The Fight to end Polio hits the Wall
In this village of 3,000 people, 12 cars, one college graduate, and no telephones, the final push to erase polio from the earth hit a dead end. The poliomyelitis virus zigzagged down one alley to the next several months ago, almost surely carried along in a fetid ribbon of water polluted with human waste. Children drank from it, splashed in it, rubbed their dirty hands in it, and that was the virusâs opportunity. It infected four of the villageâs youngest residents, who lost the use of one or two limbs. The virus thrived here in part because of the usual obstacles to better health care: internal political struggles, misspent money, alleged corruption. But an unusual additional factor came into play in the hamlets along the fault line between Christians and Muslims in West Africa: Local Muslim clerics told villagers to reject the polio vaccine because it was part of an American plot.Thes "Men of God" are willing to condemn their people to the possibility of polio for political points. Posted by: Cheddarhead 2004-01-21 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=24780 |