Polio
Vaccine-Preventable Disease
What is Polio?
Background
Signs and Symptoms
About 1 out of 4 people with poliovirus infection will have flu-like symptoms that may include:
- Sore throat
- Fever
- Tiredness
- Nausea
- Headache
- Stomach pain
These symptoms usually last 2 to 5 days then go away on their own.
A smaller proportion of people with poliovirus infection will develop other more serious symptoms that affect the brain and spinal cord:
- Paresthesia (feeling of pins and needles in the legs).
- Meningitis (infection of the covering of the spinal cord and/ or brain) occurs in 1 out of 25 people with poliovirus infection.
- Paralysis (can't move parts of the body) or weakness in the arms, legs, or both, occurs in about 1 out of 200 people with poliovirus infection.
Between 2 and 10 out of 100 people who have paralysis from poliovirus infection die because the virus affects the muscles that help them breath.
source: http://www.cdc.gov/polio/about/
Transmission
Complications
Paralysis:
- One in 200 infections lead to irreversible paralysis. Among those, 5% to 10% die when their breathing muscles become immobilized.
- In many cases temporary or permanent muscle paralysis occurs.
- Disability.
- Deformities of the hips, ankles and feet.
Source(s):
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/polio/basics/complications/con-20030957
Steps to Eradicate Polio Forever
Steps to eradicate Polio Forever:
- Increase programs in these Polio thriving countries targeted to vaccinate the younger generations.
- Increase vaccination campaign efforts to get the population educated and vaccinated.
- Continuous donations from other countries to help fund Pakistan and Afghanistan rid Polio.
Current statistics on Polio:
- 80% of the worlds population is now living in certified polio-free regions.
- Type two wild poliovirus transmission has been successfully stopped since 1999.
- Failure to stop polio, in these last remaining areas could result in as many as 200,000 new cases every year, within 10 years, all over the world.