-Caveat Lector- Volunteers conduct house-to-house polio vaccines in Dominican Republic By SUSANNAH A. NESMITH The Associated Press 12/16/00 5:52 PM SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) -- Volunteers went from house to house in poor neighborhoods Saturday, vaccinating children against polio in the wake of an outbreak here that has left at least six children paralyzed and alarmed health officials. "Tomorrow, I need to be able to grab a child on the street, any child under 5 years old, and ask his mother if he was vaccinated, and she's going to tell me yes," said Jose Beltre, the volunteer coordinator in La Cienega, a squatter neighborhood in the center of the capital. "We have to get everyone," he told a group of 15 volunteers before they set out, armed with thermoses of the oral vaccine and chalk to mark the houses they had visited. Health care experts thought polio was eliminated from the Western Hemisphere in 1991, when the last case was reported in Peru. Then in November, an unusual strain of the virus appeared, first in the remote mountain town of Constanza. Six cases have been confirmed in the Dominican Republic and a seventh has been reported in neighboring Haiti. The countries have 8 million people each and share the island of Hispaniola. In response to the outbreak, health officials in the Dominican Republic launched the three-day vaccination campaign Friday. The goal is to vaccinate 2 million children either at stations or by sending volunteers house to house in poorer and remote areas. Experts from the Pan American Health Organization say the outbreak was caused not by the wild virus, but by an unusual mutation of the vaccine. The oral vaccine, a relatively safe form of the live virus, is preferred in part because it is contagious and can give what experts call "herd immunity." But that only works if most children are vaccinated directly. If too many children are left unvaccinated, the virus can circulate in the population long enough to mutate back into a virulent strain, as apparently happened here. None of the children who contracted the virus had been vaccinated, PAHO officials say. The only other similar outbreak occurred in Egypt in the 1980s, when 30 people contracted the disease. Polio is a crippling and sometimes fatal disease that attacks the central nervous system and usually strikes children younger than 5. Fewer than 7,100 cases were reported worldwide last year, confined to Africa and Asia. A handful of mothers lined up Saturday morning at the clinic in La Cienega. A few others followed the teams around, waiting for them to reach their homes. "I get every vaccine they'll give me for him," said Maria Altagracia, as she waited for the team to reach her house, and her 2-year-old son Jose. "The children all get so sick here, but a lot of that is because the mothers neglect them." The volunteers picked their way through garbage strewn alleys, knocking on doors and wandering through houses looking for children. Coordinating the vaccinations was complicated. The vaccine has to be kept on ice and must be given to at least 80 percent of the children to prevent the mutation. A safer injected vaccine that can't mutate isn't used here because it's more expensive, it has to be given by professionals and it doesn't offer the herd immunity effect. Copyright 2000 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
