A Vaccinated Man Has Been Emitting Virulent Polio for 28 Years

Image: Children after an India polio-vaccination event, 2012. Courtesy CDC.gov

phenomena.nationalgeographic.com - September 2nd, 2015 - Maryn McKenna

At the end of the decades-long global battle to eradicate polio from the planet, there is what looks like a simple goal: Render every person immune, by vaccination, for long enough that the disease can find no host in which to breed, and thus dies out. That was the strategy behind the eradication of smallpox, and since polio like smallpox affects only humans, it is supposed to work for that disease too.

Of course, it’s a little more complicated, and a paper published last week reveals one of the most challenging complications.

(VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE)