Disease almost always accompanies warfare. Historians of the European Wars of Religion, the Napoleonic Wars, and the First World War have studied the connections between warfare and epidemic disease in great detail.

The Syrian Civil War is now producing a health crisis in Syria. Polio seems to have re-emerged in the country amidst the ongoing fighting.

NPR reports that “The World Health Organization is investigating a cluster of possible polio cases in an eastern province of Syria. If the cases are confirmed, they’d be the first ones in the war-torn nation in more than a decade. The country eliminated polio in 1999.”

NPR reports on polio in Syria.