The Polio Scare

There is a small outbreak of polio in Indonesia - the first time after a decade. Polio used to kill about a million a year during its peak but mass immunisations have almost eradicated the disease in the world except for a few countries where it remains endemic - Afghanistan, India, Niger, Nigeria, Eygpt and Pakistan but even these countries have reduced their infection rates with vaccinations.

But because of religious zealots in Nigeria who started a boycott of the vaccine claiming that it was contaminated by US agents, the disease has spread to various countries in Africa. And perhaps through a returning worker or Muslims pilgrims coming home from Mecca, it spread to Indonesia. Causing the present alarm.

Again, such religious clerics should simply focus on their preaching and leave everything else to the experts. And now because of them, countless innocent children in Africa have been inflicted with the paralysing polio. And now this spread to Indonesia. I cannot say much of these unthinking and misguided religious groups that advocate withholding of medical healing on the basis of some obscure religious edict or simply hatred of the USA.