| Polio
The Disease Polio was one of the most dreaded childhood diseases of the 20th Century in the United States. An epidemic in 1916 killed 6,000 people and left 27,000 more paralyzed. In the 1950's, parents refused to let their children go to movies or go swimming for fear of catching the disease. Most of us don�t remember how terrified parents were that polio would leave their children unable to walk or force them to spend the rest of their life in an iron lung. Since polio vaccine became available in 1955 the disease has disappeared from the U.S., and may soon be gone from the rest of the world as well. The number of cases of paralytic polio in the United States has fallen from more than 20,000 in 1952 to only a few cases a year today. The few cases that have occurred in recent years have not been caused by the natural disease, but by one type of polio vaccine � as we will explain below. But even though there is no polio in the United States � or in fact in the Western hemisphere � it is still common in some parts of the world. A single infection brought into the country by someone traveling from one of these regions could lead to polio epidemics all over again if we were not protected. That is why we continue to vaccinate. Polio is caused by a virus that lives in the throat and intestinal tract. It is spread through contact with the bowel movements of an infected person (for instance, by changing diapers). Some children who get polio don�t feel ill at all. For others, polio simply feels like a cold, with symptoms appearing about 6-20 days after exposure. Sometimes these children will also feel some pain and stiffness in their neck, back, and legs, but this soon goes away. However, some children who get polio become paralyzed � that is, they lose the use of their muscles. This is called paralytic polio. Paralytic polio can start like a common cold, but often with severe muscle pain. Paralysis usually comes within the first week. Most often it affects the child�s legs, but sometimes it affects other muscles including those that control breathing. Some children recover from their paralysis, but many will be permanently disabled. There is no treatment for polio, and some children die from it. Polio is most contagious from about 7-10 days before symptoms appear till about 7-10 days afterward. Polio Fact: The �March of Dimes� began in 1938 as a fund-raising campaign for polio. People were asked to send one dime directly to the White House to help fight the disease. In the first 3 days, the White House received 230,000 dimes. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose profile is now on the dime, was himself paralyzed by polio. Polio Vaccination History: A 1916 polio epidemic in the United Stated killed 6,000 people and paralyzed 27,000 more. In the early 1950's there were more than 20,000 cases of polio each year. Polio vaccination was begun in 1955. By 1960 the number of cases had dropped to about 3,000, and by 1979 there were only about 10. The success of polio vaccination in the U.S. and other countries sparked a world-wide effort to eliminate polio. Today: No wild polio has been reported in the United States for over 20 years. But the disease is still common in some parts of the world. It would only take one case of polio from another country to bring the disease back if we were not protected by the vaccine. If the effort is to eliminate the disease from the world is successful, some day we won't need polio vaccine. Until then, we need to keep getting our children vaccinated. |
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