LIBREVILLE, Sept 19, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – As scientists around the world rush
to find a vaccine to stem the spread of Covid-19, another deadly disease,
polio, has become the latest target of misinformation campaigns online.
The World Health Organization (WHO) celebrated the announcement on August
25 that Africa had eradicated the wild poliovirus — a landmark in a decades-
long fight against the crippling disease.
However, there still exists a version of the illness known as vaccine-
derived polio, which occurs in rare incidents when the weakened virus in the
vaccine mutates.
It particularly affects countries with low immunisation rates and poor
sanitation, health experts say.
Two days after the WHO’s announcement, the UN confirmed that more than a
dozen cases of vaccine-derived polio had sprung up in nine states across
Sudan.
The outbreak added further fuel to the already prolific spread of
conspiracy theories pushing false claims about vaccination on social media.
– ‘Gates-funded vaccine’ –
Conspiracy theory groups promptly reported the outbreak in articles
decrying “one of the biggest public health scandals of the decade”, singling
out the WHO and billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates in their attacks.
A misleading article blaming a “Gates-funded vaccine” for “causing” the
outbreak has been shared more than 8,000 times in Facebook groups from the US
and Canada to Colombia.
The claims have also been circulating in Europe, with a French version of
the article shared in various groups in France and Belgium.
But the article fails to mention that the cases involved people who had not
been immunised themselves.
Gates, whose eponymous foundation has ploughed billions of dollars into
making vaccines against diseases like polio, malaria and HIV, is a regular
target for fringe groups accusing him of benefiting from vaccination or even
using them for harm.
In spring, Facebook posts shared tens of thousands of times falsely claimed
that a polio vaccine tested by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
paralysed 490,000 children in India.
And last month, a viral YouTube video claimed the philanthropist wanted to
forcefully vaccinate and “depopulate” Africa.
Gates, who has pledged $250 million in efforts to fight the Covid-19
crisis, has pushed back against rumours, blaming “a bad combination of
pandemic and social media and people looking for a very simple explanation”.
– Lack of immunisation –
According to the WHO, 1,271 people around the world have caught vaccine-
derived polio in the past decade.
The disease typically spreads when the weakened vaccine-virus is excreted
by a vaccinated person and then picked up by others through contaminated
water or food.
Oliver Rosenbauer, spokesman for the WHO’s polio eradication scheme, told
AFP Fact Check that while contamination could in fact “passively immunise
other kids”, it can have devastating consequences in countries with low
immunisation rates.
“The problem arises when you have a community which is very poorly
vaccinated, because this virus is allowed to continue to spread, to find
susceptible unvaccinated children,” he said.
“Over time, it can actually revert to a strain that is a strong strain, no
longer a weak strain.”
According to the WHO, people are protected against both vaccine-derived and
wild polioviruses if a population is “fully immunised”.
The UN’s health agency has warned of a surge in vaccine-derived polio cases
in recent years. More than 360 cases were recorded in 2019, compared to 104
in 2018 and 96 in 2017.
Sixteen countries across the continent are currently experiencing
outbreaks, with the novel coronavirus forcing some vaccination campaigns to a
halt.
But a new vaccine that “cannot genetically mutate” is on the cards, said
Richard Mihigo, the WHO’s programme area manager for immunisation and vaccine
development in Africa.
This novel oral polio vaccine (nOPV), which is “more genetically stable”
and “cannot genetically mutate”, is set to be introduced from the end of the
month, he said.