Mothers with babies and children up to age 5 line up for the oral polio vaccine in Bangui, Central African Republic, in May 2008. Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, and Angola have experienced nine new cases of polio caused by the live virus in oral polio vaccines that has mutated into an infectious form, according to statistics released in November by the World Health Organization. That brings the global total of such infections to 157 for the year, and it means that more children are paralyzed as a result of such vaccine-derived infections than illnesses caused by the wild virus, which has affected 107 people this year.

First published in the December 10, 2019, 9:30 p.m. edition

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