Since 2014, doctors have been stymied by a medical mystery: People, mostly children, were coming down with a previously unknown, polio-like illness that causes paralysis. Now, an international team of doctors published in The Lancet believe they’ve managed to confirm the main culprit.
Martha Lillard spends half of every day with her body encapsulated in a half-century old machine that forces her to breathe. Only her head sticks out of the end of the antique iron lung. On the other side, a motorized lever pulls the leather bellows, creating negative pressure that induces her lungs to suck in air.
Thanks to the miracle of vaccines, we’re close to wiping out the polio virus. But that very success brings its own set of fresh challenges. We need some safe form of the virus in order to keep manufacturing vaccines, but those are in short supply the closer we come to eradicating polio entirely.
Chalk up a major win for global health: according to the World Health Organization, Africa has been free of wild cases of Polio since July. This comes down to a dedicated vaccination campaign that has advanced the continent towards zero cases.
Leprosy is not a disease of the past. Nor is it particularly rare. It’s one of the many diseases we get without ever knowing we have them . . . most of the time.
There have been a lot of bad news this year. And a lot of good ones too. Sadly, many of the good ones never get the proper coverage they need and they get lost in the storm of crap that we have to suffer every day. Luckily, Bill Gates has highlighted the best five news of 2014 that you probably missed.
The Council on Foreign Relations maintains a map of global outbreaks of diseases that are easily prevented by inexpensive vaccines. Today, on World Polio Day, the map includes updated data that dramatically illustrates how violence against health-care workers has led to a polio resurgence in Pakistan.
Finally, some good news to report on the Ebola front: Nigeria and Senegal are now completely free of the disease. Here's how they contained the outbreak — and why the world needs to take notice.
Sixty years ago, polio was infecting tens of thousands of children a year. In the past few years, despite setbacks, it has been brought near eradication. Two different vaccines are responsible for the fight against polio. An inspirational story... if the two people who developed the vaccines hadn't spent their…
Vaccination rates are up and have been for awhile. The public is more convinced than ever of the importance of vaccines. So, why are we hearing so much about the anti-vaccine movement? A new study delves into why — and what we can do about it.
In North America and Europe, we don't worry much about polio. Vaccination has eradicated this terrible, paralyzing disease in the first world. But far away, the poliomyelitis virus still thrives. Wired accompanied the teams that hope to wipe out polio in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The story is compelling.
The vacuous anti-vaccine movement should take notice of what's going on in Syria. After less than three years of civil war, polio is on the rise — a stark reminder of what happens when societies collapse.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ended Prohibition, pulled the United States out of the Great Depression, and bolstered Allied Forces during World War II. He also suffered from paralysis, which was widely believed to have been caused by polio.
This short documentary by Tyler Bastian, Trevor Hill, Tim Skousen and Cameron Trejo is called Everything is Incredible and well, it's pretty freaking incredible. It's about a man named Agustín from Honduras who can't walk, lives in poverty yet still wants to fulfill a dream: to fly. He spends his days making a…
In 1979, the World Health Organization successfully eradicated smallpox, removing one of history's greatest killers from the face of the Earth. Now, 33 years later, we just might be on the verge of repeating that feat with polio.
You may be familiar with the surreal anti-smoking PSA starring Artoo and Threepio and the drunk driving spot which takes place on Mos Eisley (Bea Arthur would take your keys away). But infinitely less lauded is this spot, where Artoo is afraid he suffers from whooping cough. Silly droid, he didn't ask Santa for an…
