Last month, Washington Post and other news sources reported the death of an 8-year-old boy in Laos due to the polio-virus coming from the polio vaccine, i.e., vaccine-derived virus. The World Health Organization (WHO) has revealed the death of a 4-year-old in early October as well as the infection of a dozen other people with the same virus.
On its website, WHO posted, on November 26, the update on status of polio incidence in Laos, revealing two new cases of the vaccine-derive poliovirus type 1 (VDPV1). The posting tells that a 4-year-old boy died because of the vaccine-derived poliovirus infection in early October at Bolikhamxay Provincial Hospital.
The second case reported is that of a 15-year-old boy who also comes from the same village. He tested positive for the vaccine-derived virus. Not only that but WHO writes in the posting: “Furthermore, circulating VDPV1 (cVDPV1) has also been isolated from the stools of 12 healthy contacts.”
It is worth reminding that Laos has been polio-free since 1993 when the last wild polio case was reported from the republic. According to WHO, “Lao PDR’s last case of indigenous wild poliovirus occurred in 1993.”
But the oral polio vaccine that has crippled thousands of children in India, Nigeria, and possibly Pakistan created mutated virus that replaced the wild polio virus and continued causing polio in otherwise healthy communities. WHO and medical industry insist that incidence of vaccine-derived polio is “rare” but stats reveal it to be more common than the wild polio paralysis.
