Re:Promising HIV vaccine passes phase one human trials with ...
by rdl on Thursday September 29, 2011 @12:20PM
(#3053053)
You may be thinking of smallpox, which exists in one or two declared labs (and probably a few more black labs).
Polio is unfortunately still "in the wild" in certain areas (Afghanistan/Pakistan/India, Sub-Saharan Africa), and had a bit of a resurgence lately. The Gates Foundation is putting a lot of effort into finishing up polio eradication.
Relevant TED talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/bruce_aylward_how_we_ll_stop_polio....
One of the main issues is that the polio vaccine requires a cold chain (presently; I think they have a new shelf-stable one); the smallpox vaccine, at least one of them, does not.
Re:Promising HIV vaccine passes phase one human trials with ...
by desigooner on Thursday September 29, 2011 @03:01PM
(#3053775)
FYI, there has been only 1 reported case of Polio in India this year (since January). It might be that time when Polio is finally eradicated from India
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/09/polio-in-india-g...
Re:Promising HIV vaccine passes phase one human trials with ...
by briggsbio on Thursday September 29, 2011 @10:43PM
(#3055365)
And there have been dozens of cases of wild polio in China and the Philippines this year, and a current outbreak of 84 cases in Pakistan, according to the WHO. http://www.who.int/csr/don/en/index.html
I should have been more specific - I meant that if we did develop a vaccine, then it makes following the [smallpox] example theoretically possible, but this is still extremely challenging due to the reasons given.
Although you and I might have the vaccine, not everyone has it - not by a long shot - because not everyone is born in a modern westernized hospital. These people are protected by virtue of an extreme mobilization to literally isolate every single instance of the virus. It (hopefully) only exists in the lab at this point.