POST 01379E: POLIO THE FINAL INCH

POST 01379E: POLIO—THE FINAL INCH 26 JANUARY 2009 ****************************************** This posting has two interesting links to the polio eradication vs. control debate. The first one, to an article that very efficiently sums up the primary factors in the debate: Polio’s Last Stand (Newsweek Web Exclusive, 22 Jan. 2009). Many thanks to Mogens Munck for sharing this with the forum. The second is a link to a film entitled The Final Inch. The film, which has been nominated for the Oscars in the documentaries section, is “a 38-minute film about the historic global effort to eradicate polio. Here, the story told is as much about the messengers as the message. You'll meet Munzareen Fatima, one of the thousands of community "foot soldiers" across India working to sway reluctant families to vaccinate their children, and Dr. Ashfaq Bhat, who travels into the backwaters of India's Ganges Basin by boat and foot to detect emerging cases of polio. Martha Mason and Mikail Davenport bring us into their lives and describe the paralyzing challenges of childhood polio, reminding us how endemic polio once was in the United States.” Clips from the film and more information on the film can be accessed on the website: FinalInch.org. The website also includes a trailer of the film. As David Heymann of the World Health Organization quite aptly puts it, "When you haven't seen a disease for quite a while, which is the case in the industrialized countries, you forget about the terrible disease that it really is." This post comes with a caveat: only contributions from subscribers that have something new to contribute to the debate will be posted. Post generated using Mail2Forum (http://www.mail2forum.com)