Poliovirus detected in Gaza wastewater, posing "ticking time bomb" for public health
Poliovirus detected in Gaza wastewater, posing "ticking time bomb" for public health
www.salon.com
Poliovirus detected in Gaza wastewater, posing "ticking time bomb" for public health | Salon.com
Serious question, because I’m not an immunologist: didn’t we eradicate polio? How do we keep finding it in weird places every once in a while? Is it actually just that good at surviving in adverse, ex vivo conditions?
There's plenty of infectious agents that can just lay dormant almost indefinitely.
There's major concern about viruses coming from the melting permafrost in regions like Siberia.
If you want to hear something even more terrifying, prions can last about indefinitely. Chronic wasting disease in deer is particularly bad because a deer might die and its remains will decompose into the earth. But vegetation will later grow, and some of those prions will have contaminated the new vegetation. A new deer will get infected by eating that vegetation, even years later.
Technically, it's never been proven that deer can contract CWD from the ingestion of plants. Although, apparently mice and hamsters can.
But, prions suck. Even bleach won't kill these bastards.
Hell, although there's no real, strong evidence to suggest it actually has made the jump, and research has shown it would be really difficult, its probably not impossible. If you ENTERTAIN the stories about the people suspected of possibly contracting CWD, it's even more scary. (Yes, I know the study does more to disprove human infection, than not, but it does a good job of outline suspected cases)
I did not know this. Thanks for the nightmare fuel.
Polio still exists, primarily in Afghanistan and neighbors if I remember correctly.
And it’s because the CIA used vaccination drives as cover, which was eventually found out, and of course make people skeptical of American vaccination missions going forward. Genuinely one of the stupidest fucking calls the CIA has ever made - and they’ve made a lot of those (coughIRANcough).
One vector is that it can lay trapped in permafrost for millenia. And the permafrost is melting.
I wonder if it was on purpose even? I have zero evidence of such, just wondering...
Why would they bother with polio when they can just bomb them with impunity?