But, I did read recently about polio eradication from the African continent etc. Obviously not just by WHO but efforts by many organizations, but still a major achievement isnt it?
Update: I actually would like to know why WHO is not credible any more for some. Honest question.
At least earlier on the narrative was that "the WHO is in the pocket of China" [1] -- while in reality of course the Americans were a dramatically bigger contributor both financially and politically. Further at the same time, the Chinese were actually threatening the WHO and leadership for not playing ball.
Typical 2020 dumpster fire. And at the end of the day the people really hurt are once again the poor countries who depend on the WHO, and we're left with a pile of sadly misinformed "they have no credibility" armchair quarterbacks. It's always easier to try and tear down a system than understand and fix. That's my opinion anyways.
For a more balanced take I suggest this Atlantic piece [2].
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/mike-pompeo-who-workd-health...
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/world-h...
This made me laugh out loud
I suppose next time I reply to a contentious topic I could find a more seemingly dispassionate source but these days most folks are too polarized to read any news source that doesn't align with their preconceived notions.
Current WHO head was elected in part thanks to chinese votes and influence. When the WHO recommended not closing any borders, how can you disentangle the professional epidemiology opinion from the political push? You can't.
Which is not to say it is evil or incompetent (it may be either, both, or none - I don't know enough) - but it seems to have an aura of "professional only" organization, which is unjustified.
The original plan that the WHO and the rest of the global health community came up to deal with this also seems like total magical thinking to me - basically, everywhere would drop the type 2 poliovirus component (which corresponded to a virus whose wild type had been eliminated) from their live vaccines at once, which would leave none to turn into vaccine-derived poliovirus and type 2 woud just go away. It didn't work that way. I can't fathom why it even should. Nonetheless, there were lots of fancy documents and presentations from the WHO and other such organisations explaining this strategy very hopefully. The current ones don't have the same level of hope.
I can fathom this easily. The general idea is to administer the type 2 oral vaccine (along with 1 and 3, but we’re talking about type 2 here) widely enough that you expect a high level of herd immunity. Specifically, you want sufficient immunity that any newly introduced cases of reverted-to-virulent type 2 will quickly die out. (If you have the resources, you also try to give almost everyone the injectable vaccine to prevent virulent type 2 cases from causing damage). Then you stop giving the type 2 vaccine. If it works, then type 2 is locally eradicated.
Maybe it’s “magical”, but this particular magic has worked in almost the entire world.