Talk:2012 Sierra Leonean cholera outbreak

Oral vaccines
The paragraph on oral vaccines seems unbalanced. The first source is primary research, and the second is behind a paywall. But from what I can tell, there are reasons for the current WHO policy of not rushing vaccines to an outbreak area, and the policy is just now changing. Kendall-K1 (talk) 12:48, 6 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I searched Google News and found a bunch of blog sources. I did find one good source: Push for More Cholera Inoculations Kendall-K1 (talk) 13:24, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

I am afraid that the article was unbalanced without mentioning oral cholera vaccines. The safe, oral vaccines have been around for over 20 years but are not much used in public health. How can you not consider this option in an outbreak? The fact the NYT and the journal Science, both leading in their respective fields, are taking the use of oral cholera vaccines in outbreak situations seriously indicates that this is not an outlandish idea but mainstream. The scandal is the witholding of the vaccine. I happy to expand further if you think this would be helpful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lseidlein (talk • contribs) 23:54, 6 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The problem is that the subject isn't covered well enough and what we have isn't well sourced. Do you have some good sources we can use? See WP:V for what makes a good source. Kendall-K1 (talk) 00:38, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I also just noticed that the statement about vaccines not being distributed is sourced by a paper from Jan 2011. Since that's well before the outbreak started, it can't possibly contain any information about the deployment of vaccines in the current outbreak. Kendall-K1 (talk) 15:04, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

You are right that there is no evidence that oral vaccines will shorten outbreaks. I have therefore revised the language. Several groups are working on models trying to estimate how to optimise the use of oral cholera vaccines. An additional problem besides getting the vaccines will be to estimate the benefit? the best evidence would come from a randomised controlled trial. but how can you possibly randomise outbreaks - ethically, politically and logitically? And it would require a really large number of outbreaks because each outbreak is quite different from the previous one.--Lseidlein (talk) 23:23, 7 September 2012 (UTC)


 * You missed the point. I'm looking for a source that says vaccines have not been used in the current outbreak. Kendall-K1 (talk) 21:11, 8 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Here's another source. Kendall-K1 (talk) 23:41, 8 September 2012 (UTC)