Polio outbreak in northeast Syria risks spreading, WHO says.

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - A polio outbreak has been confirmed among young children in northeast Syria and risks spreading in the region, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Tuesday.

Twenty-two children in Deir al-Zor province became paralysed this month with acute flaccid paralysis, symptoms that can be caused by other diseases, and WHO's laboratory in Tunis has now isolated the wild polio virus in samples taken from 10 victims.

"Out of those 22 being investigated, 10 are now confirmed to be polio type one," WHO spokesman Oliver Rosenbauer told a news briefing in Geneva.

Most victims are under two years old and are believed never to have been vaccinated against the crippling disease or to have received even a single dose of the oral vaccine instead of three which ensure protection, he said.

Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/10/29/uk-syria-crisis-polio-idUKBRE99S0FH20131029

[bemildred]

1. This is unforgivable. Next we will have a smallpox outbreak. Maybe some Typhus. nt

[Javaman]

3. I'm really surprised there hasn't been a flu outbreak yet.

I know there has been various waterborne diseases already reported.

[bemildred]

5. Yes, things are moving around too.

I think we don't now realize how much modern medicine and industrial food production keep a lid on things. Trouble used to come in groups: famine, pestilence, and war. It still does in some places. People forget that we too can be food for something.

[Bosso 63]

2. Well thats just f#@*ing great.

Having spys pretend to be immunization workers is a good way to get intelligence, until someone figures it out and all workers become suspect.

[Comrade Grumpy]

4. The Saudis must be so proud of their handiwork.

[gopiscrap]

6. My mom had polio, it was not pretty.