Global eradication of wild poliovirus type 2 declared
This is a clear win for "public health", leaving just one strain (WPV1) which is geographically constrained.A question for those well-versed in the biomedical and ecological sciences: Could our attempts to eliminate viruses be a bad thing? I wonder about the ripple effects of ecosystems on each other. We do not brag about extinction of any other natural entity.And, when eradication does not work, when we only hinder the growth of a virus, does the attempt to prevent infection (or any form of "mostly cleaned up" coverage) encourage the development of superviruses by selecting for the strongest in the set, in the same way bacteria do? If not, why?