Reference no: EM133553596

Question: As we learned in lecture this week, the polio vaccine was actually developed in 1950, but for various reasons, unfortunately it still remains a deadly agent of disease in other parts of the world. We're going to come back to the topic of vaccination in a few more weeks, however this article pulls together various elements of the material from week one including the global nature of public health as well as the political elements associated with being on the front lines. For over 20 years, the World Health Organization (course text, page 33-36) has made the elimination of polio a priority. If the United States hasn't seen a case of wild polio since 1979, why should we care as to whether or not polio is present in places like Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan? Why is it that polio could be eliminated? Why hasn't it been? What are the bigger picture implications? Are there other global and local diseases we need to be concerned with? With respect to polio, how does the WHO or the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation embody the 10 Essential Services? How do the organizations from the assigned readings in Chapter 2 of the text help us to achieve "an integrated system of partnerships" to address diseases like Polio?