A shipment of potentially infectious poliovirus destined for a South African research centre is missing after the vehicle carrying it was hijacked in Johannesburg, officials said Wednesday - 4 May 2011. The potentially deadly virus is considered a biohazard, said South Africa's National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), though the government research centre's deputy director downplayed the threat of a polio outbreak. "The risk is fairly small, but we'd like to advise that if the package was found for the public not to tamper with it. Simply return it to the NICD or to the police," Adrian Puren said. He said there was no risk the package could be used in a terrorist attack and that the carjackers who stole the courier vehicle carrying it probably did not realize what the box contained -- stool specimens from the Congo being sent to the NICD for polio testing. The NICD said the vehicle was stolen Tuesday - 3 May 2011 - and later recovered, but that the specimen shipment was missing. Carjacking is a pervasive problem in South Africa, which has some of the highest crime rates in the world. Nearly 14 000 carjackings were reported to police last year 2010.


http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?edis=UEV-20110505-30619-ZAF

Polio is also making a comeback, in the US. via Illegal immigrants.

Gross, we still get polio vaccinations anyways in the US. all my kids have had it.

My gramps actually had polio as a child.

that is true, in the same website it talks about polio cases in the US in children that haven't been vaccinated...

So many parents these days are dead against Vaccinations due to the risk recent inflation of Autism. I saw a 20/20 once though by a dr. who said he started that rumor and falsified reports....so who knows. . .about the link between autism and vaccinations. Parents do not take careful consideration in all the protection their children are getting from that. Autism was not as recognized as it is today and i think that is one reason there has been such a large increase to the awareness and diagnosis. It's not related to vaccinations and has never been able to be proven...

Fancy stealing a diseases. Wtf were they thinking?

Maybe they were stealing the car, and didn't realize that was in there so they tossed it out....

I saw on the news once a car was stolen from a gas station and they didn't realize there was a toddler in the back seat, so they ditched the car a few blocks later... F-ING IDIOTS

Dang..polio isn't something people want to be messing around with..the car jackers probably knew what it was cause if there is any question about a communicable disease,the specimens would of been placed in a biohazard bag or container...if they weren't. Then whoever sent the specimens broke the communicable disease and handling protocol..and polio can be transferred by fecal contamination

Im not saying they did not know what it was, but htey may not have known it was in the vehicle when they stole it, and when they saw the box, they may have thrown it out the back.

They said there was 14,000 carjackings there last year..I mean who would steal a box of poop.

Drug runners would steal it lol..that's how mules transport it

Let's just hope that everyone is up to date on their booster shots

sounds like they knew the poop was a polio sample, they recovered the car a short time later, without the poop...

Had the samples already been tested? Or were they on their way to getting tested?

it says it was monkey crap on it's way to be tested... but i think they know it was... IMO, anyway...

That sounds exactly like the movie outbreak with dustin hoffman,regarding a reeces monkey that had ebola