| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Michael Gray" |
| Date: |
19 Jan 2007 04:56:13 AM |
| Object: |
News: Science: +100, Faith:-infinity |
Vaccine drive cuts measles deaths
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6276139.stm
"Child deaths from measles have fallen by 60% following a massive
global vaccination campaign.
A study in The Lancet confirms that hundreds of thousands of lives
have been saved since 1999, surpassing a target of halving deaths by
2005.
In Africa, efforts by national governments and health agencies have
cut mortality by three-quarters.
Now scientists are considering more ambitious targets, and perhaps
even the complete eradication of the disease.
Measles is not a major killer in the western world, with the vast
majority of children vaccinated against the disease at about two years
old.
In less developed countries however, the death toll is much higher, as
children are far more likely to die from the complications of the
disease such as encephalitis, pneumonia and diarrhoea.
Covering continents
In 1999 there were 875,000 deaths worldwide, the majority in Africa.
This prompted the creation of the "Measles Initiative" in 2001, a
joint campaign between organisations including the American Red Cross,
Unicef and the World Health Organisation.
This worked with dozens of different governments to increase the
numbers of children having the opportunity to be vaccinated early in
life.
Between 1999 and 2005, more than 360 million children across the world
received a measles jab as part of mass vaccination efforts.
The "coverage" - or proportion of children getting the first
vaccination - has risen from 71% to 77%, say researchers.
In 2005 there were approximately 345,000 deaths from the disease.
The tumbling death rates in Africa have been greeted with delight by
national governments.
Olanguena Awono, the Minister of Public Health of Cameroon, said: "We
are winning the fight against measles, which has long killed, sickened
and disabled our children."
'Incredible achievement'
Dr Julie Gerberding, director of the US Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, another partner in the project, said: "One of the
clearest messages from this achievement is that with the right
strategies and a strong partnership of committed governments and
organisations, you can rapidly reduce child deaths in developing
countries."
UNICEF Executive Director, Ann Veneman, added: "Immunising children is
clearly saving lives. Reducing measles deaths by 60% in just six years
is an incredible achievement."
The next target will be more difficult to achieve - a 90% reduction by
2010 from the death rate in 2000, mainly by making sure that children
have the chance of a second dose of measles vaccine shortly after the
first.
The study authors believe it may be possible to eradicate the disease
altogether, but they said there appeared to be 'little appetite' for
the effort required to achieve this.
Experts from the Children's Population Health Unit at Great Ormond
Street Children's Hospital in London also doubted whether eradication
was possible.
Helen Bedford and David Elliman said that the high infectivity of the
virus meant that a vaccine coverage needed to be almost complete to
eliminate it as a threat, and there would be difficulties reaching
some vulnerable groups of children with a vaccine."
--
.
|
|
| User: "Mixnmatch" |
|
| Title: Re: News: Science: +100, Faith:-infinity |
19 Jan 2007 08:03:36 AM |
|
|
On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 21:26:13 +1030, Michael Gray
<mikegray@newsguy.com> wrote:
Vaccine drive cuts measles deaths
Thanks be to God.
No thanks to atheists who would rather kill babies than help them.
.
|
|
|
| User: "quibbler" |
|
| Title: Re: News: Science: +100, Faith:-infinity |
19 Jan 2007 07:33:50 PM |
|
|
In article <asj1r2l3u8j9jjsrc09j0rgqighscocqn0@4ax.com>,
mixnmatch122w@loran.net says...
On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 21:26:13 +1030, Michael Gray
<mikegray@newsguy.com> wrote:
Vaccine drive cuts measles deaths
Thanks be to God.
Nope, god created measels, according to assholes like you. God didn't
lift a finger to prevent this. It requires secular humanist organizations
like the World Health Organization to save all these lives. It also
required medical science, which works consistently, while prayers fail.
Many religious people have opposed vaccination in the past, because they
believed that it thwarted god's will to use pestilence to punish people.
A number of xian cults like Jehovah's Witless and Christian
PseudoScientists reject various forms of modern medicine on similar
grounds.
No thanks to atheists who would rather kill babies than help them.
Nope, it was secular organizations like WHO, not churches who saved the
lives of actual, live-born kids. Your god did nothing. I'd damn him to
hell, but neither he, nor hell are real. Dumbasses like MixedUpMash, of
course, are talking about abortions or stem cell research where brainless
and therefore often legally brain-dead zygotes and embryos are removed
from trespassing inside a woman's uterus. In the case of stem cell
research, blastulas with 100 cells are wrongly conflated, by religious
idiots like MixedUpMoron, with full human beings, even though they have
no brains, no eyes, no ears, no organs, no limbs, etc. By contrast, the
brain of a *fruit fly* (large than yours clearly) has over 100,000
cells, making it a thousand times more complicated than a blastula.
--
Quibbler (quibbler247atyahoo.com)
"It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the
threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, 'mad cow'
disease, and many others, but I think a case can be
made that faith is one of the world's great evils,
comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to
eradicate." -- Richard Dawkins
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "Elf M. Sternberg" |
|
| Title: Re: News: Science: +100, Faith:-infinity |
21 Jan 2007 10:44:12 PM |
|
|
Mixnmatch <mixnmatch122w@loran.net> writes:
On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 21:26:13 +1030, Michael Gray
<mikegray@newsguy.com> wrote:
Vaccine drive cuts measles deaths
Thanks be to God.
God made measles. Man made vaccines.
Elf
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "Hatter" |
|
| Title: Re: News: Science: +100, Faith:-infinity |
19 Jan 2007 08:30:17 AM |
|
|
Mixnmatch wrote:
On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 21:26:13 +1030, Michael Gray
<mikegray@newsguy.com> wrote:
Vaccine drive cuts measles deaths
Thanks be to God.
No thanks be to the scientist who actually used his critical brain
rather than spending his time on his knees in futile prayers. Prayer
has never eraticated a single disease, only science has.
Get a brain.
Hatter
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "Martin Phipps" |
|
| Title: Re: News: Science: +100, Faith:-infinity |
19 Jan 2007 08:27:01 AM |
|
|
Mixnmatch wrote:
On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 21:26:13 +1030, Michael Gray
<mikegray@newsguy.com> wrote:
Vaccine drive cuts measles deaths
Thanks be to [science].
No thanks to [God] who would rather kill babies than help them.
I fixed it.
Martin
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "Michael Gray" |
|
| Title: Re: News: Science: +100, Faith:-infinity |
19 Jan 2007 06:41:02 PM |
|
|
On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 06:03:36 -0800, Mixnmatch
<mixnmatch122w@loran.net> wrote:
- Refer: <asj1r2l3u8j9jjsrc09j0rgqighscocqn0@4ax.com>
On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 21:26:13 +1030, Michael Gray
<mikegray@newsguy.com> wrote:
Vaccine drive cuts measles deaths
Thanks be to God.
Thankyou Minerva.
--
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
