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![Deadly Polio Returns to Angola]()
If you want an example of why developed countries like the United States have to help poor countries to advance, look at the story of how polio has regained a foothold in Angola.
World health experts believed the fatal disease spread by contact with fecal matter had been eradicated since the U.N. World Health Organization started a successful vaccine plan in the late 1980's.
Since 2000, fewer than 2,000 cases were reported - and the number stayed level.
But civil war in Angola has caused a refugee crisis in and around the capital of Luanda. And the crumbling infrastructure there has caused a sanitation crisis and a rebirth of the disease.
Now
Angola is believed to have one of the largest polio epidemics in
Africa. But vaccinations, clean water, safe hygiene and better infrastructure are keys to beating the polio outbreak.
The Angolan government,
UNICEF, WHO and the
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are all working to immunize children considered to be at risk. But it shouldn't be left only to these organizations to help get vaccines distributed.
Last year, an airline passenger from the
Dominican Republic nearly caused a panic when health authorities thought he transmitted cholera after arriving in
Miami. Similar
scares have occurred with air passengers thought to be carrying pandemic flu, tuberculosis and measles.
With the way people can easily cross oceans and borders, it's in the self-interest of all nations to help keep diseases like polio at bay.
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