Comeback of polio

Issue 108 - 10 Aug 2022 (6-min read)

Image courtesy: The U.S. National Archives

Growing up in Pakistan, polio has been as real a concern as chickenpox, typhoid or malaria. Each year when the polio vaccine campaign started, we would be surrounded with posters of children with their mouths wide open receiving two drops that would prevent them from having a physically disabled life.

More recently, polio came to be associated with a sense of shame. After all, Pakistan was one of only two countries in the world where the virus still existed. But there was a reason why. A sham vaccination campaign by the American CIA to trace Osama bin Laden in Pakistan has led to deep mistrust of health workers and dealt a devastating blow to the polio eradication campaign. 

Now polio vaccine campaigns happen in secrecy here. Each health worker is accompanied by armed law enforcers and even then a polio worker and two policemen were gunned down as recently as June.

But Pakistan’s struggle with polio is not the topic for today’s newsletter. Today, The Global Tiller looks at places that had successfully eradicated polio but are seeing a resurgence. Why is polio making a comeback and what does it look like for those who have been living with the disease?

Polio has been around for a long time but it was never really considered a huge problem until the end of the 1800s when outbreaks began and continued into mid 1900s, especially in Europe and America. At its peak in 1952, there were a total of 57,628 cases recorded in the US alone. 

For centuries, protection from polio was passed down through generations as mothers who had survived a polio infection themselves would pass on their immunity to their babies in the womb and through breast milk. It may come as a surprise but better sanitation and hygiene were the reason why polio epidemics started happening. Babies weren’t coming into contact with the virus while they had maternal immunity so when they encountered it later on, the disease hit them hard.

And this is perhaps the reason why, this year, the US recorded its first case of polio since 2013 and the UK found a likely polio outbreak for the first time in 40 years. A fellow Substack writer of The Turnstone newsletter explains how fewer people getting vaccinated can make the virus come back even in places where it has been absent for decades. 

How much of a danger these anti-vaccine movements are causing calls for an entire issue of the newsletter but one lesson everyone should learn from Covid is how easy the virus present in one part of the world can make its way to other parts, and, if there are people who aren’t vaccinated, anyone carrying the live virus from places where it’s still present can be lethal.

Perhaps the biggest advocates of polio vaccines are none other those who have been living with it for decades. By 2017, there were still three polio survivors in the US who were using the iron lung, a half-century old machine, to be able to breathe. All of them contracted the virus in the 50s during a particularly bad outbreak. 

By the time the polio vaccines were invented, it was too late for them but the intensive vaccination campaigns brought down cases drastically. So much so that, by the 60s, the company that manufactured the iron lung didn’t feel the need to make them anymore. Now these survivors, whose life literally depends on the iron lung, rely on friends and family who understand mechanical work to repair the machine in case of a breakdown. 

It doesn’t matter anymore whether or not your country has successfully eradicated polio. With the live virus circulating in countries, such as Pakistan, Afghanistan and parts of East Africa, and the resurgence being noted in the US and the UK, polio should be a global concern. We have rolled back on a lot of progress as a society. Let’s not add polio to the list.

Until next time, take care and stay safe!

Hira - Editor - The Global Tiller

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Dig Deeper

What happens if a company making life-saving machines decides to stop production? Why do we let the market decide who gets to live? Watch this video to learn how life works for those relying on the iron lung and how they are one malfunction away from losing the ability to breathe.

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…and now what?

"The best is the enemy of the good” goes a famous proverb in French. I agree, sometimes trying to do too much can be harmful. You try to force things believing that by doing more you’ll control more, and that would work better.

But there are things you don’t control. Since the pandemic, I have been telling managers and other leaders I work with: “You control nothing.” It may not entirely be true but it shocks them enough to realise that they need to stop thinking that they have control over what happens, or whatever happens is because they decided it to be that way.

What matters is not control, but commitment. Doing things all the way to the end, implementing the strategy all the way till the last item is essential for real success. This ability for grit that some people have is more than often the key to real success. It’s not always necessary but it may be what makes a difference: in how you deliver your work, in how you show up, in how you present your personal ethics. 

Persevering to reach the highest standard, making sure that you’ve served everyone and not just the important ones, having this sense of detail that will push you to make sure you’ve covered every topic, every situation and understand all the intricate interactions of many situations.

That’s how humanity got rid of smallpox. If you’ve heard of William Foege and Viktor Zhdanov, you will know that they are the scientists who led the campaign to eradicate smallpox. The Future of Life Institute awarded them last year for their commitment, determination and perseverance. 

Why? Because they found ways to reach out to communities, to go until the last mile. Something we failed to do with polio.

It’s easy to blame anti-vaxxers as the main cause of polio’s unwanted comeback, as unwanted as those singers from the 80s who are still trying to come back every now and then with the same old songs. But the problem is more nuanced than that. It lies in our sewage, in our interconnectedness and in the fact that, even if we think that what happens in Afghanistan or Pakistan is not our concern, it actually is. 

We lacked the perseverance to go till the last mile. We thought we had it covered. We thought we had done enough to make it work. But as we can see with polio, it wasn’t enough, it won’t be and it’ll cost lives.

The same way that I didn’t check my side mirror to spot the motorcycle coming my way, the same way Boeing didn’t focus on safety and let two airplanes crash. It’s not a lack of care but a lack of perseverance, of understanding that, as you control nothing, you have to focus on the only thing you do control: your behaviour, your grit, and your ethics that should push you to go till the last mile.

That’s why we have ethics, that’s why we should focus on our 'why' and the impact we want to have on the world. Not because of some philosophical, privileged position but because, as William Foege and Viktor Zhdanov have proven to us, it works much better.

Philippe - Founder & CEO - Pacific Ventury

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