How was the polio virus spread?

Polio is spread when the stool of an infected person is introduced into the mouth of another person through contaminated water or food (fecal-oral transmission). Oral-oral transmission by way of an infected person’s saliva may account for some cases.

What are the stages of poliomyelitis?

The course of the disease is divided into four stages:

Prodromal Stage or Pre-Paralytic Stage- few hours to a few days and 1 to 3 days is the usual duration.
Acute Stage-3 to 6 weeks from the onset of Poliomyelitis.
Convalescent Stage- Duration 3 months.
Stage of Recovery-This stage extends for almost 2 years.

What is the incubation period of polio?

The incubation period for nonparalytic poliomyelitis is 3-6 days. For the onset of paralysis in paralytic poliomyelitis, the incubation period usually is 7 to 21 days. The response to poliovirus infection is highly variable and has been categorized on the basis of the severity of clinical presentation.

How long does it take to recover from polio?

People who have milder polio symptoms usually make a full recovery within 1–2 weeks. People whose symptoms are more severe can be weak or paralyzed for life, and some may die. After recovery, a few people might develop “post-polio syndrome” as long as 30–40 years after their initial illness.

Did polio affect adults?

Today, despite a worldwide effort to wipe out polio, poliovirus continues to affect children and adults in parts of Asia and Africa

What was the infection rate of polio?

In 2018, the wild disease was spread between people only in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2019 there were 175 cases of wild polio and 364 cases of vaccine-derived polio….Outcomes of poliovirus infection.

Outcome	Proportion of cases
Minor illness	24%
Nonparalytic aseptic meningitis	1–5%
Paralytic poliomyelitis	0.1–0.5%

How did the first person get polio?

1894, first outbreak of polio in epidemic form in the U.S. occurs in Vermont, with 132 cases. 1908, Karl Landsteiner and Erwin Popper identify a virus as the cause of polio by transmitting the disease to a monkey.

How can polio be prevented?

Polio can be prevented by immunizing a child with approrpiate vaccination. There are currently two effective polio vaccines, the inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) and the live attenuated oral polio vaccine (OPV)

Can you still get polio if you’ve been vaccinated?

Do people still get polio in the United States? No, thanks to a successful vaccination program, the United States has been polio-free for more than 30 years, but the disease still occurs in other parts of the world.

Can you be cured of polio?

There is no cure for polio, it can only be prevented. Polio vaccine, given multiple times, can protect a child for life

Can you get polio if you’ve been vaccinated?

Anyone who is moderately or severely ill at the time the shot is scheduled should usually wait until they recover to get vaccination. Can the IPV vaccine cause polio? No, the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) cannot cause paralytic polio because it contains killed virus only.

When did they stop vaccinating for polio?

OPV was recommended for use in the United States for almost 40 years, from 1963 until 2000. The results have been miraculous: Polio was eliminated from the United States in 1979 and from the Western Hemisphere in 1991. Since 2000, only IPV is recommended to prevent polio in the United States

Can polio spread through air?

Sometimes poliovirus is spread through saliva from an infected person or droplets expelled when an infected person sneezes or coughs. People become infected when they inhale airborne droplets or touch something contaminated with the infected saliva or droplets. The infection usually begins in the intestine.

What countries still have polio outbreaks?

Wild polio cases have decreased globally by more than 99% since 1988, but the virus is still endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which report dozens of cases every year

WHO declared polio free country?

Africa to be declared polio-free. The World Health Organization (WHO) is set to certify on Tuesday that the African continent is free from wild polio, four years after the last cases appeared in northeastern Nigeria

When a country is certified as free of wild polio?

When a country is certified as free of wild polio? A region is certified as free of wild polio after three years have passed without the virus being detected in any of its countries

Is the world free of polio?

The annual number of wild poliovirus cases has declined by more than 99.9% worldwide from an estimated 350,000 in 1988 when the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was launched. Of the three serotypes of wild poliovirus, type 2 was certified as eradicated in 2015 and type 3 was certified as eradicated in 2018

Which countries are not polio free?

Only 677 cases of polio have been reported in 2003 (as of 13 January 2004), representing a greater than 99 percent reduction in poliovirus. Today, only six countries in the world remain polio-endemic (Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Niger and Afghanistan).

Why is polio still a problem in some nations?

Polio is a disease that has lifelong health consequences for those infected. The poliovirus is of particular concern to public health because it spreads easily – it can circulate without causing symptoms for weeks, and so can travel great distances, entering polio-free areas by land, sea or air travel.

Why does Pakistan still have polio?

By 1991, only 83 percent of Pakistani children had been vaccinated. Research by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in April 1998 cited a failure to vaccinate, vaccine failure, and inadequate immunization strategies as causes for the continued incidences of polio in this time.