Davao River contaminated with polio virus

[Mike J]

This is scary, especially considering some people feel vaccines are not safe and their children may not be protected. 

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1168475/davao-river-contaminated-with-polio-virus

DAVAO CITY—Health authorities here confirmed that the Davao River had been found positive of the polio virus, prompting them to order a massive polio vaccination drive next month, targeting all children in the city.

Dr. Josephine Villafuerte, City Health Officer, said the water samples earlier submitted to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) confirmed the presence of polio virus in the Davao River, prompting health authorities here to set in motion a massive vaccination drive that would begin next month to stop the spread of the virus.

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“In October, there will be an outbreak response vaccination. Every children is targeted to be covered,” she said.

Villafuerte, however, gave assurance that there was no confirmed polio case here yet.

She said Davao City, President Rodrigo Duterte’s hometown, would be among areas for a massive vaccination campaign aside from the National Capital Region (NCR), Lanao del Sur province, Central Luzon and Calabarzon (Cavite-Laguna-Batangas-Rizal and Quezon) provinces.

Villafuerte said the City Health Office would involve the community in the fight against polio resurgence. All village officials would be gathered on Sept. 24 for a planning session.

Village chiefs, she said, should be at the forefront of the fight against polio resurgence and report cases of paralysis immediately.

She added that village officials should also be responsible for proper human waste disposal.

There was no need for resorts to shut down swimming pools, though, she added. But she cautioned the public against swimming in the city’s resorts until the waters were declared safe.

She added that swimmers, especially children, “may ingest contaminated water.”

She also asked resort owners to make sure their water is clean. “They should disinfect the water,” she added.

Parents should be aware of the symptoms of polio like fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, stiff neck and sudden floppiness of arms or legs.

Villafuerte said if parents see these signs on their children, “please go to the doctor immediately.”

Department of Health data showed that coverage of polio immunization in Davao City was only 72 percent from 2016 to 2018.

Villafuerte said people who have had complete shots of polio vaccine need not worry./TSB

 

[Tommy T.]

1 minute ago, Mike J said:

This is scary, especially considering some people feel vaccines are not safe and their children may not be protected. 

 

This is especially scary considering that adults also need to have a polio booster... I learned about this several years ago at a tropical medicine clinic... That pink liquid booster we all drank as teenagers was supposed to be the "final" booster we would ever need. Not so, according to the clinic I was at: University of Washington Tropical Medicine Clinic...

Time to get your polio booster, guys and gals!

[BrettGC]

I just finished watching the "Decoding Bill Gates" doco on Netflix...

Prior to this Davao outbreak, it gives the impression that it was just isolated pockets in Nigeria and India that had any polio at all.  But having said that, The Gates Foundation does focus on Africa and India so probably didn't give the entire picture.  

Recommended watching by the way.

 

 

[Tommy T.]

39 minutes ago, BrettGC said:

Prior to this Davao outbreak, it gives the impression that it was just isolated pockets in Nigeria and India that had any polio at all.  But having said that, The Gates Foundation does focus on Africa and India so probably didn't give the entire picture.  

 

When I stayed on a remote atoll in the middle of the Pacific, I learned that there was TB and polio in the island population.

I further observed that, in lieu of "baby" food, many of the new mothers would take their regular food and chew it up small and feed that to their babies. Some of these mothers already had TB or other diseases and then passed them on to their kids, unknowingly. This was, unfortunately, an observed fact.

Edited September 24, 2019 by Tommy T.
Fix spelling

[Marvin Boggs]

I thought I had read of some resurgent cases in the US over the last few years, can anyone confirm?  Scary indeed.

[Tommy T.]

Hmmm.. and just re-reading this news item...

They didn't even mention other major contaminants in that river...

How about leptospirosis?

E-coli?

Hepatitis?

Giardiasis?

To name just a few...

In my opinion, kids and adults need to stay out of river and run-off waters in all of Philippines...period!

Edited September 24, 2019 by Tommy T.
alter content

[Mike J]

26 minutes ago, Marvin Boggs said:

I thought I had read of some resurgent cases in the US over the last few years, can anyone confirm?  Scary indeed.

I think you may have heard of a strange disease that mimics polio.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/10/us-reports-new-cases-puzzling-poliolike-disease-strikes-children

Does a virus that usually causes mild cold symptoms sometimes paralyze children? That’s the question facing scientists again this fall, after dozens of previously healthy kids across the United States suddenly lost muscle control in their arms or legs, a condition called acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) that eerily resembles polio.

Sixty-two AFM cases in 22 states have been confirmed in recent weeks, scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta said at a news conference today; 65 more are under investigation.

Similar waves occurred in 2014 and 2016, and scientists have fingered a relative of the poliovirus, called enterovirus D68 (EV-D68), as a possible culprit. But the evidence isn’t conclusive yet, and it’s unclear why the virus would only paralyze a small minority of children it infects. Solving these mysteries is urgent because the paralysis can be severe and irreversible. AFM is “pretty rare, but it’s pretty devastating,” says Priya Duggal, a genetic epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, who’s studying whether some patients may have a genetic vulnerability to the virus. “And it appears that it’s cyclical. It’s not going away.”
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EV-D68, which spreads through saliva and mucus, usually causes symptoms such as coughing, sneezing, and mild fever. It isn’t routinely diagnosed, so no one knows how common it is. But a U.S. outbreak in late summer 2014 was more serious than usual: Hundreds of children hospitalized for severe breathing problems were diagnosed with the virus. Around the same time, more than a dozen children in the Kansas City, Missouri, area and in Denver, which both had large EV-D68 outbreaks, came down with sudden loss of muscle control. Many had mild fever or cough in the days before their symptoms developed, but were otherwise healthy. By December 2014, 120 children in 34 U.S. states had been diagnosed with AFM—“something that hadn’t been reported since the days polio was circulating,” says CDC virologist Mark Pallansch.

Scientists suspected a link between the cases of paralysis and the EV-D68 outbreak, but only one patient had evidence of the virus in their cerebrospinal fluid, the usual place to look for pathogens infecting the central nervous system, and fewer than half tested positive in stool or respiratory samples. That may be because samples were taken too late to detect the virus, researchers say; AFM typically appears more than a week after initial cough or fever symptoms.

The fall of 2016 saw another wave of the puzzling cases: 149 of them in 39 U.S. states. That year, 29 patients with AFM in 12 European countries tested positive for EV-D68 as well.

At today's press conference, CDC officials did not say whether any of the recent patients have tested positive for enteroviruses, but “the pattern looks very familiar,” says Carlos Pardo-Villamizar, a neurologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, including the timing: Autumn is known as enterovirus season.

Lab research has strengthened the case that EV-D68 could be involved. Last year, Kenneth Tyler of the University of Colorado (CU) School of Medicine in Aurora and his colleagues reported that several strains of EV-D68 could cause paralysis in mice. The virus seemed to target nerve cells involved in muscle control, which makes the link much more plausible, says Kevin Messacar, a pediatric infectious disease specialist also at CU who was not involved in the study. The study also suggests the virus is attacking nerve cells directly, he says, not just triggering an immune response that damages nerves. Others have demonstrated that the virus can infect neuronal cells in the lab. Meanwhile, scientists have found that EV-D68 can be detected much more reliably in respiratory fluids than in cerebrospinal fluid or stool samples, where the poliovirus shows up, which makes identifying infections easier.

If EV-D68 is causing paralysis, it’s not clear why it does so in very few cases. But the same is true for the poliovirus, which causes only mild symptoms, or none at all, in more than 99% of those infected. One theory is that the virus can infect nerves in rare cases when it slips into an injured muscle. Another is that genetic factors play a role; Duggal and her colleagues have enrolled nearly 60 families in their study to test that theory.

Experts warn that as the 30-year campaign to eradicate polio winds down, attention will shift to other viruses that can paralyze children. (One known example is enterovirus 71; it produces blisters on children’s mouths, hands, and feet, but also occasionally causes AFM.) “We are seeing more cases of this in the U.S. than we are seeing in polio in the whole world,” Tyler says. “You don’t need an awful lot of paralyzed children to make this an important problem.”

There is no vaccine against EV-D68. A candidate vaccine developed in China has shown promising results in mice, but at the moment, the rate of serious complications from the virus is probably too low to make widespread vaccination worthwhile, says Heli Harvala, a virologist at University College London. Still, “It might be something we need to consider” in the future, she says. “It’s good to be ready.”

Rather than pinning hopes on a vaccine, doctors should be aware of the symptoms of AFM and know how to test for enteroviruses that might be involved, says Thea Kølsen Fischer, a viral epidemiologist at Nordsjællands Hospital in Hillerød, Denmark. “I would rather see investments in surveillance and diagnostics,” which could help front-line clinicians to be ready when the next cluster emerges.

[Jack Peterson]

1 hour ago, Mike J said:

Villafuerte, however, gave assurance that there was no confirmed polio case here yet.

 

 From Mikes Post of course But with there being no confirmed cases could this just be over Media/ and Medical Scaremongering. Governments like to keep the people  in a the State Fear, I make no light talk of this Dreadful Disease ( which I saw plenty of in the 50's in the UK) but then, I tend to think this type of Reporting covers a deeper State of Fear that may not raise it's head, while we ( and The Locals) fear for Health rather than see what has also happened within Hours of this story, Yet another Price Hike in Fuel.  I am not normally politically motivated but of Late, it Seems that Mr President always finds a reason for other fears to cover what he has done. 

[Tommy T.]

Scary stuff, Mike...

[Tommy T.]

13 minutes ago, Jack Peterson said:

 From Mikes Post of course But with there being no confirmed cases could this just be over Media/ and Medical Scaremongering. Governments like to keep the people  in a the State Fear, I make no light talk of this Dreadful Disease ( which I saw plenty of in the 50's in the UK) but then, I tend to think this type of Reporting covers a deeper State of Fear that may not raise it's head, while we ( and The Locals) fear for Health rather than see what has also happened within Hours of this story, Yet another Price Hike in Fuel.  I am not normally politically motivated but of Late, it Seems that Mr President always finds a reason for other fears to cover what he has done. 

There's a lot to be said  regarding Mikes's post. And a lot from Jack's post... Try reading the book from Michael Creighton "State of Fear."

It is a bit out of date but states exactly what Jack describes and what I often believe is what is happening worldwide... Without delving into politics here, I see that businesses and governments seem to find ways to profit by keeping the populace upset, nervous and anxious? Is that about right, Jack?

Sometimes I wonder how much is going on to "control" us as just walk-a-day people?

Maybe this also needs a new topic? I leave it up to you guys... This is just, again, voicing my opinion...

After re-reading your last comment, Jack, and then my own response... I also see another thing you pointed out - that keeping people fearful or concerned with various things can and will deflect their opinions and anger or concern away from themselves - it seems that is fairly common in USA an here?

No comment directly about politics beyond that from me...

Edited September 24, 2019 by Tommy T.
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