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Incorrect information!!!! Please don't add information that is not directly related to the topic. I was very disappointed to see two rude comments on this page. Middle and high schoolers use Misplaced Pages for papers and such and this information is not needed. {{unsigned|Hailleyfargo}} Incorrect information!!!! Please don't add information that is not directly related to the topic. I was very disappointed to see two rude comments on this page. Middle and high schoolers use Misplaced Pages for papers and such and this information is not needed. {{unsigned|Hailleyfargo}}
* I think you'll find that it's the middle and high-schoolers that are actually adding the rude comments! - ]<sup><font color="DarkRed">]</font></sup> 19:02, 29 November 2006 (UTC) * I think you'll find that it's the middle and high-schoolers that are actually adding the rude comments! - ]<sup><font color="DarkRed">]</font></sup> 19:02, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
{{DiseaseDisorder infobox |
Name = Polioliosis |
ICD10 = {{ICD10|A|80||a|80}}, {{ICD10|B|91||b|90}} |
ICD9 = {{ICD9|045}}, {{ICD9|138}} |
}}
{{Taxobox_begin | color = violet | name = ''Poliovirus''}}
{{Taxobox_image | image = ] | caption = }}
{{Taxobox_begin_placement_virus}}
{{Taxobox_group_iv_entry}}
{{Taxobox_familia_entry | taxon = '']''}}
{{Taxobox_genus_entry | taxon = '']''}}
{{Taxobox_species_entry | taxon = '''''Poliovirus'''''}}
{{Taxobox_end_placement}}
{{Taxobox_end}}

'''Poliomyelitis''', often called '''polio''' or '''infantile paralysis''', is a ] induced infectious disease which spreads via the ]. It may proceed to the ] stream and into the ] causing ] weakness and often paralysis. An ancient disease, it was first recognized as a medical entity by ] in 1840. ] and eradication efforts led by the ] and ] of ] are credited with the reduction of the number of annual diagnosed cases from the hundreds of thousands to around a thousand.

==Infection==
Polio is a ] which is categorized as a disease of civilization. Polio spreads through human-to-human contact, usually entering the body through the mouth due to fecally contaminated water or food (fecal-oral transmission).

The poliovirus itself is a small RNA (]) virus related to ]. There are three separate ] and all are extremely infectious. While polio can strike a person at any age, over fifty percent of the cases occur in children between the ages of three and five.

The ] period of polio, from the time of first exposure to first symptoms, ranges from three to 35 days. Most people infected with the poliovirus have no symptoms or outward signs of the illness and are thus never aware they have been infected. After initial infection with poliovirus, virus particles are excreted in the feces for several weeks. In all forms of polio, the early symptoms of infection are fatigue, fever, vomiting, headache and pain in the neck and extremities. Around 1% of unimmunized people develop paralytic complications, in some cases ] paralysis.

==Cause of the disease==
Poliovirus enters the human body through infection of the intestinal lining. From there, it penetrates into the ] via the ] and the bloodstream via the ] and becomes a ].

In fit individuals with functioning immune systems polio infection is often ], which increases the risk of contagion inasmuch as they can spread the disease through their contaminated feces unawares. Others suffer only a mild flu-like syndrome. Together these two forms of presentation account for nearly 90% of all cases of polio.

A short breakdown of the remaining cases follows:

* 9% develop non-paralytic polio
* 1% develop paralytic (spinal or bulbar) polio, of which:
: 10% die
: 50% recover fully
: 40% are left with only partial recovery or permanent paralysis

Of those 0.4% of polio patients who are left with permanent paralysis, the most affected locations are either or both lower limbs. Quadriplegia or resipiratory paralysis occur in only 0.01% (1 in 10,000) of all polio patients.

===Non-paralytic polio===
] may result in fever, vomiting, abdominal pain, lethargy, and irritability, and some muscles tender to the touch. In some cases there may be no significant symptoms whatsoever.

===Paralytic polio===
] ward.]]
The virus affects the anterior horn cells in the spinal column which control movement of the trunk and limb muscles including the intercostal muscles. An affected limb becomes floppy and poorly controlled &mdash; the condition of ] (AFP). This presentation can lead to permanent paralysis of the body yet it only occurs in around 1% of cases. The classic later appearance (as seen in ancient Egyptian illustrations) is of muscle wasting in a leg. Destroyed motor neurons do not regenerate and the affected motor units of muscles will not be able to contract. However, some sprouting from nearby surviving neurons may reinnervate the denervated muscle. This additional load on surviving motor neurons may precipitate the later developing symptoms of post-polio syndrome.

The degree of paralysis is proportional to the extent of infection of the motor nuclei, which is likely to be proportional to the degree of viraemia, and inversely proportional to the degree of immunity. Extensive paralysis of the trunk and muscles of the thorax and abdomen (]) may occur.

Of all paralytic polio cases, 79% are spinal and 19% spinal with bulbar symptoms. If it affects the upper part of the cervical spinal cord (C3-4-5) then diaphragm paralysis requires ventilator support. Without respiratory support, polio affecting respiration is likely to result in death from failure of breathing, or aspiration of secretions and resulting ]. The critical nerves are the phrenic nerve (the nerve driving the diaphragm to inflate the lungs) and the innervation to the muscles needed for swallowing. Skilled clearing of the airway with suction and ] are part of the care of such a patient, but they can expect to need mechanical ventilation. The tank respirator - ] - has some advantages over positive pressure applied through a tracheostomy and is still in use by a few people. In Europe, the usual treatment is either mask ventilator or tracheal ventilator. Some patients use ] type mechanical ventilators worn over thorax and abdomen.

===Bulbar polio===
{{main|Bulbar polio}}
The brainstem is homologous to the spinal cord, but the motor neurons arising from there and passing in the various ] control the various muscles of eyeball movements; the trigeminal nerve and facial nerve which innervate cheeks, tears, gums, and muscles of the face, etc; the ] which in part controls swallowing and functions in the throat, tongue movement and taste; the nerve that sends signals to the heart, intestines, and lungs; and the accessory nerve that controls upper neck movement. In bulbar polio, the virus infiltrates and destroys these nerves.

The Copenhagen epidemic has been described as the start of intensive care, when large numbers of patients were ventilated by hand ("bagged") by medical students and anyone else to hand. In modern medicine, electronic ventilators have replaced bagging in long-term care situations.

The mortality rate of bulbar polio ranges from 25% to 75%,<ref>http://www.cdc.gov/nip/publications/pink/polio.pdf</ref> according to the age of the person. In 2006 there are still polio survivors who must use a ], spend their entire day or most of their day in an ] or attached to an assistive respiratory machine to stay alive. Bulbar polio and spinal polio are part of a continuum of anatomy and disease (]). Bulbar polio occurs in 2% of cases of paralytic polio. Approximately one in 1000 people who have had paralytic polio have permanent resipiratory paralysis.

In extremely rare cases usually resulting from ] an uncontrolled infection of the entire brain called ] ] can develop. Even with intravenous antiviral therapy and intensive care the mortality rate for these cases is extremely high.

==Polio and children==
Young children who contract polio may sometimes suffer mild symptoms, and as a result they may become permanently immune to the disease. Hence inhabitants of areas with better sanitation may actually be more susceptible to polio because fewer people have the disease as young children.

People who have survived polio sometimes develop additional symptoms, notably muscle weakness and extreme fatigue, decades later; these symptoms are called ]. Since it's possible to have a polio infection without having significant paralysis, many people who are unaware they ever had polio may now be suffering from post-polio syndrome.

==History==
The effects of a polio infection have been known since ]. ] paintings and carvings depict otherwise healthy people with withered limbs, walking with canes at a young age, etc. It has been theorized that the ] ] was stricken as a child, and this caused him to walk with a limp for the rest of his life. The first medical report on poliomyelitis was by Jakob Heine in 1840. ] was the first to empirically study a poliomyelitis epidemic in ]. The work of these two physicians has led to the disease being known as the Heine-Medin disease.

] may have contracted polio in 1921]]

] may have contracted polio in 1921. The unquestioned diagnosis at the time and thereafter in countless references was paralytic poliomyelitis. Yet his age (39 years) and many features of his illness are more consistent with a diagnosis of ] (an ] ]). A peer-reviewed study published in 2003,<ref>Goldman, AS ''et al'', . J Med Biogr. 11: 232-240 (2003)</ref> using ], found that six of eight ] favored a diagnosis of Guillain-Barré syndrome over poliomyelitis. See ] article.

Regardless of the cause, the result was that Roosevelt was totally and permanently paralyzed from the waist down. Although the paralysis (whether from poliomyelitis or ]) had no cure at the time, for the rest of his life Roosevelt refused to accept that he was permanently paralyzed. He tried a wide range of therapies, but none had any effect. Nevertheless, he became convinced of the benefits of hydrotherapy, and in 1926 he bought a resort at ], where he founded a hydrotherapy center for the treatment of polio patients which still operates as the ] (with an expanded mission). Furthermore, after he became President, he helped to found the ] (now known as the ]), that supported the rehabilitation of victims of paralytic polio and the discovery of the ].

The first ] was invented by ] and demonstrated dramatic results on its first case on October 12, ] at Children's Hospital, Boston. The design was subsequently improved by ] in ], and the Emerson Iron Lung remains the standard to this day.

===Vaccine history===

During the late 1940's and early 1950's, a research group headed by Dr. Chelsea Amazing at Boston's Children's Hospital successfuly cultivated the polio virus in human tissue. This highly significant breakthrough ultimately allowed for the development of vaccines against polio. Enders and his colleagues, Dr. Thomas H. Weller and Dr. Frederick C. Robbins, were recognized for their labors with a Nobel Prize<ref>http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1954/</ref> in 1954.

There were other proposed vaccines introduced before Jonas Salk's ] in 1953. In 1935 ] and ], a research assistant at New York University, claimed to have discovered a vaccine procured from ground up monkey spinal cords. Brodie tested the vaccine on himself and several of his assistants. He gave the vaccine to three thousand children and many developed allergic reactions, but no immunity to polio. Other researchers could not replicate his experiment. Philadelphia pathologist ] also claimed to have developed a vaccine that same year, and not only was that false, but it proved to be fatal to a number of children.<ref>http://www.utexas.edu/features/2005/polio/</ref>

In the ], amid a U.S. polio epidemic, millions of dollars were invested in finding and marketing a ] by commercial interests, including Lederle Laboratories in New York under the direction of ]. Polish-born virologist and immunologist ], who also worked at Lederle, claims to have created the first successful polio vaccine (in ]) but his vaccine, a live attenuated virus taken orally, was still in the research stage and would not be ready for use until five years after Jonas Salk's polio vaccine (a dead injectable vaccine) reached the market. From a normal level of around 20,000 cases a year, the U.S. experienced an outbreak of 58,000 cases in 1952 and 35,000 in 1953. Salk's vaccine was used in a test involving 623,972 schoolchildren who received either a placebo or the vaccine. Results were announced in 1955 with the vaccine showing 80-90% efficiency. Immediate vaccination campaigns in the U.S. reduced the number of cases of polio to only 5,600 in 1957. With the addition of Sabin's vaccine after 1961, only 161 cases were recorded in the U.S. in 1964. (The last wild virus case of polio in the U.S. occurred in 1979.)

] used samples of difficult-to-manufacture attenuated virus given to him by Hilary Koprowski to make his own vaccine. "Koprowski would later complain that the polio vaccine he had discovered became known as the Sabin vaccine."<ref>http://www.polio.info/polio-eradication/front/templates/index.jsp?codeRubrique=34&lang=EN</ref><ref>http://www.dimes.on.ca/events/iabs.asp?sect=curr</ref> Koprowski's own vaccine was ultimately tested, but the outcome was a failure. After the attenuated live virus entered the body, it sometimes reverted to a virulent state.<ref>http://www.tufts.edu/as/wright_center/lessons/pdf/docs/activities/polio.pdf</ref> Nevertheless, from 1957 to 1960, large scale tests were carried out in the ]. The results have been controversial.<ref>http://www.koprowski.net/Polio%20Article.htm</ref>

The Simian Virus known as ] was also present in many polio vaccines from 1954 to 1962. The U.S. ] and the ] have taken the lead in responding to questions on SV40 and polio vaccine. CDC states that SV40 markers have been found in certain types of human cancers, but it has not been determined if SV40 plays any role in these cancers. A recent report published by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences concluded that "the evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship between SV40 containing polio vaccines and cancer." There is a need for further research to answer questions that have been raised concerning this possible relationship. More detailed information on SV40 and the polio vaccine can be found at the .

An analysis presented at the Vaccine Cell Substrate Conference in 2004<ref>http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996116</ref> suggested that vaccines used in the former ] countries, China, Japan, and Africa, could have been contaminated up to 1980, meaning that hundreds of millions more could have been exposed to the SV40 virus.

===Vaccine-derived polio===

The oral polio vaccine (Sabin or OPV) can revert to a virulent form. This is believed to be a rare event, but outbreaks of vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) have been reported, and tends to occur in areas of low coverage by OPV.<ref>{{cite journal | author=Kew OM, Morris-Glasgow V, Landaverde M, ''et al.'' | title=Outbreak of poliomyelitis in Hispaniola associated with circulating type 1 vaccine-derived poliovirus | journal=Science | year=2002 | volume=296 | pages=356&ndash;9}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | author=Yang C-F, Naguib T, Yang S-J, ''et al.'' | title=Circulation of endemic type 2 vaccine-derived poliovirus in Egypt, 1983 to 1993 | journal=J Virol | year=2003 | volume=77 | pages=8366&ndash;77}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | author=Shimizu H, Thorley B, Paladin FJ, ''et al.'' | title=Circulation of type 1 vaccine-derived poliovirus in the Philippines in 2001 | journal=J Virol | year=2004 | volume=78 | pages=13512&ndash;21}}</ref> There is currently (14 Aug 2006) an outbreak of vaccine-derived poliovirus in China.<ref>{{cite journal | author=Liang X, Zhang Y, Xu W, ''et al.'' | title=An outbreak of poliomyelitis caused by type 1 vaccine-derived poliovirus in China | journal=J Infect Dis | year=2006 | volume=194 | pages=545&ndash;51 }}</ref> This sort of polio outbreak only occurs in areas of low vaccine coverage, presumably because the OPV is itself protective against the related outbreak strain.

===First effective vaccine===

The first effective ] was developed by ] at the ], although it was the oral vaccine developed by ] eight years later that was used for modern mass inoculation. The Salk vaccine is based on formalin-inactivated poliovirus. The Sabin vaccine is a live-attenuated vaccine, produced by the passage of the virus through non-human cells at a subphysiological temperature. <!-- - the resulting mutants have alterations in the virus' IRES. an--> The first ] of children against polio began at Arsenal Elementary School and the ] in ] in ]. Through mass immunization, the disease was wiped out in ], although a small outbreak of vaccine-related polio occurred in ] in 2002, where political strife and poverty have interfered with vaccination efforts.<ref>http://www.vaccinationnews.com/DailyNews/March2002/PolioHaitiLinkedIncompleteVax.htm</ref>

==Recent eradication efforts==

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
|+Polio Case Counts
|-
! Year !! Estimated !! Recorded
|-
| 1975 || - || 49,293
|-
| 1980 || 400,000 || 52,552
|-
| 1985 || - || 38,637
|-
| 1988 || 350,000 || 35,251
|-
| 1990 || - || 23,484
|-
| 1993 || 100,000 || 10,487
|-
| 1995 || - || 7,035
|-
|2000 || - ||2,971
|-
|2001 || - ||498
|-
|2002 || - ||1,922
|-
|2003 || - ||784
|-
|2004 || - ||1,258
|-
|2005 || - ||1,998
|-
|2006 || - || 1,674*
|-
|colspan="3" |References:<ref>http://www.rotary.org/foundation/polioplus/news/eradication.html</ref><ref>http://www.rotary.org/foundation/polioplus/news/milestones/index.html</ref><ref>http://www.polioeradication.org/casecount.asp</ref><ref>http://www.who.int/vaccines/immunization_monitoring/en/diseases/poliomyelitis/afpextract.cfm</ref><ref>http://www.unicef.org/pon95/heal0002.html</ref><ref>http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1644</ref>
|-
|}
*<nowiki>*</nowiki>To ] ]

Due to the large increase in the number of vaccinators and field workers since 1998, the number of estimated cases is thought to be reasonably close to the actual reported number of cases in recent years.<ref>http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/4/268.pdf#search=%222005%20%22%20estimated%20polio%20cases%22%22</ref>

===1988===
In 1988, the ] passed a resolution to eradicate polio by 2000, a measure which was inspired by ]'s 1985 pledge to raise $120 million toward immunising all of the world's children against the disease. The next plan called for a stop of spreading the virus by 2005. Most remaining polio infections are located in two areas: the Indian sub-continent and ]. Eradication efforts in the Indian sub-continent have met with a large measure of success. The Indian Government started the ] Campaign to get rid of polio. Most families allowed their children to take the vaccine.

===1994===
On 20 August the Americas region was certified as polio-free.
*

===1995===
Operation ](Mediterranean, Caucasus, Central Asian Republics and Russia) is launched: from now on, National Imunnization Days are coordinated in 19 adjacent countries of the European and Mediterraenean regions of ].

===2001===
575 million children (almost one-tenth the world's population) received polio vaccine (some 2 billion doses of oral polio vaccine).

===2002===
The World Health Organization announces that Europe is polio-free.<ref>http://www.europaworld.org/week88/unhealthbody28602.htm</ref> Certification took place on ] in the ] ].<ref>http://www.euro.who.int/mediacentre/PR/2002/20020620_1</ref>

===2003===
In the ] province in Northern Nigeria, which operates under ] (Muslim religious law), the immunisation campaign was suspended in September ] when prominent Muslim leaders said they suspected that vaccines supplied by Western donors were adulterated to reduce fertility and spread ] as part of a ] drive against ].<ref>http://allafrica.com/stories/200407020367.html</ref> On ], ], the WHO announced that Kano had pledged to restart the campaign in early July, after a 10-month ban during which the virus spread across Nigeria and into 10 other African countries that were previously polio-free. By 2006, this ban would be blamed for 1,500 children being paralyzed and having caused $450 million for emergency activities.<ref>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061012/ap_on_he_me/un_polio_who;_ylt=ApbHVMLfLg1C8MIDSa80lxIR.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3czJjNGZoBHNlYwM3NTE-</ref>

In addition to the rumors of sterility and the ban by Nigeria's Kano state, civil war and internal strife in the countries of Sudan and Ivory Coast have complicated WHO's polio eradication goal.

*] state in India accounted for two-thirds of the worldwide total cases reported this year.

===2004===
Almost two-thirds all the polio cases in the world occur in Nigeria (760 out of 1170 total).

===2005===
{{main|Poliomyelitis in 2005}}
1,831 cases of wild poliovirus (excludes ] derived polio ]es) were confirmed worldwide<ref>http://www.polioeradication.org/content/fixed/casemap.shtml</ref> with almost 40% of those occurring in Nigeria.<ref>http://www.polioeradication.org/casecount.asp</ref>
*] has used the ] campaign to increase polio immunisation rates. India recorded 4,791 cases of polio in ], 1,600 in ], 225 in ], and 135 in ].<ref>http://onlypunjab.com/fullstory2k5-insight--status-22-newsID-25278.html</ref>
*In the United States, "On ] ], the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) identified poliovirus type 1 in an unvaccinated, immunocompromised infant girl aged 7 months (the index patient) in an ] community whose members predominantly were unvaccinated for polio. The patient has no paralysis; the source of the patient's infection is unknown. Subsequently, poliovirus infections in three other children within the index patient's community have been documented."
*] and ], neither of which had reported cases since before 2000, each had hundreds of cases - all derived from importation, probably from Nigeria.

===2006===
1674 cases reported by December 3, an increase from the previous year.

Only five countries in the world (Nigeria, Italy, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan) are reported to have endemic polio. Cases in other countries are attributed to importation. Nigeria accounts for the majority of cases this year (to date) but India has reported more than ten times the number of cases this year as it had last year (30% of worldwide cases this year).

==Famous polio survivors==
* ], actor
* Sir ], scientist and ] author
* ], film director
* ], game show host
* ], musician
* ], rock musician
* ], actress
* ], British actor, broadcaster, and writer
* ], physiologist
* ], artist
* ], Australian author
* ], Senate Minority Leader
* ], musician
* ], golfer
* ], Australian media proprietor
* ], violinist
* ], US president, commonly thought to have had polio, probably had ]
* ], athlete, later Olympic gold medalist
* ], American Jazz Musician
* ], British actor
* ], author
* ], psychiatrist
* ], musician

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
{{commonscat|Polio}}
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* - an amusing yet educational graphic novella from the Science Creative Quarterly
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==Further reading==
*{{cite book | author = Maus, Richard A. | title = Lucky One: Making it Past Polio and Despair | edition = | publisher = Anterior Publishing | year = 2006 | id = ISBN 0-9776205-0-6}} (A memoir by a childhood survivor of polio.)

*{{cite book | author = Oshinsky, David M. | title = ] | edition = | publisher = Oxford University Press | year = 2005|id = ISBN 0-19-515294-8 }} (Awarded the 2006 ] for history.)

*{{cite book | author = Paul, John R. | title = A History of Poliomyelitis | edition = | publisher = Yale University Press | year = 1971 | id = }} (Classic history.)

*{{cite book | author = Wilson, Daniel J. | title = Living with Polio: The Epidemic and Its Survivors | edition = | publisher = University of Chicago Press | year = 2005 | id = }} (History of polio from accounts written by survivors.)

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Revision as of 01:09, 7 December 2006

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OR

moving original research here. "Flat earth" stuff that deviates from known facts becomes Misplaced Pages material only when a lot of folk "believe" in it. - Nunh-huh 06:15, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Polio and Pesticides

Correction, "Flat earth" stuff was believed by a repressive church.

I've read "Policy and guidelines" and there is nothing that says anything about "popularity" being a prerequisite. The works I quote are based in orthodox journals.

Much evidence contradicts the poliovirus theory. Completely omitted from current orthodox medical science are the toxicological correlations. A great history of poliovirus criticism exists during the era of 1908 to 1956, which is unknown to the modern era.

The highly funded virology of polio clouds the toxicology of polio. Orthodoxy completely omits and avoids the obvious toxicology of polio. The symptoms of "polio" are similar to DDT poisoning, for instance. The dumping of DDT into the U.S. food supply matches the rise and fall of polio during 1940-72.

The foundations of polio virology are extremely weak. Poliovirus has not been properly characterized because the supposed virus was rarely if ever isolated, ie., filtration was not employed; impure tissue extracts were utilized in lab experiments.

A problem with "polio" (as virus caused) is that the diagnoses of polio epidemics did not, could not, and rarely attempted to, distinguish between the many various neurological diseases. Thus, even if one were to accept the virus theory, one cannot know if a declared "polio epidemic" was polio, encephalitis, meningitis, a variety of flu-like diseases, or a mixture of all of them.

http://www.geocities.com/harpub

(unsigned)

  • To save anyone else the trouble, the reason this theory is "unknown to the modern era" is because it is arrant nonsense, supported only by hyperbole and graphs showing all the signs of statistical manipulation. I think this section can be removed from talk and archived somewhere. ::Didactylos 03:44, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I find Didactylos' attitude to be 'flat earth'. If we do not consider alternative explanations for how the world works then how can we correct mistakes and advance? Richard Lynton 2 April 2006.
  • Round Earth, I think. There is a tendency to assume taht our fourbears were stupid or careless reflected in the quoted text above. On the contrary, when Polio was common it had the attention of the public, and was commonly seen by them and by their doctors, and netiehr found it very difficult to seaprate out Polio from other diseases. Yes, among the cases reported as Polio there may be a few that are due to other causes, but to suggest that one event that coincides with one burst of Polio is the cause of that burst - though presumably the others are due to other causes - is to both assume things about our ancestors that are untrue and to unecessarily multiply hypotheses.
  • Science is about discovering the truth. Galileo was put under house arrest for explaining that the earth went around the sun. His beliefs went against Aristotle's teachings and upset many who thought Aristotle was infallible. Today we do not say that Aristotle was stupid. However we see those who locked up Galileo as fundamentalist. Richard Lynton 4 April 2006.
Sure, we consider alternative explanations. And if they are found to be without merit we reject them. thx1138 16:11, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Or, to quote Carl Sagan,

    "The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."

    -- MarcoTolo 23:26, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

WHO

The reason I phrased it as announced a campaign rather than is involved in eradication is that the United Nations is very political, and often their agencies don't do what they say they're planning to do. I earnestly hope this campaign succeeds, however. Polio is horrible -- worse than malaria. --Uncle Ed 21:47, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The plan to eradicate polio is older than 2004, however 2004 was hoped to be the year of the final campaign to get rid of the disease. The campaign has met unforeseen resistance in Nigeria, but the last report I read from BBC says that it is still hope. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3546877.stm -- Gustavf 16:41, Mar 13, 2004 (UTC)

We may want to update the polio spread thing. This article from the Globe and Mail points out it's hit Sudan; It's also hit Botswana in the past few weeks.

Combined with AIDS in the latter region, it's going to get nasty.

All because people decided to make a vaccine political. It'd be as comical as the anti-flouride stuff in the 50s, if it weren't so deadly. -- Penta 04:18, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

SV40

SV40 is not known to cause cancer, only known to be associated with certain types of cancer, so this page is factually incorrect.

See and the Misplaced Pages entry on SV40.


POV

From the article:

Most families allowed their children to take the vaccine. Some Muslim families refused due to false rumors that the vaccine causes impotence or infertility or both.

This is point of view. Surely the Muslim families who refuse vaccinnes do not believe that their refusal is due to false rumors. Instead the article should cite a group of people who believe those families are acting on false rumors.

--ErikStewart 00:42, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

in order to not regard the rumours as baseless in fact, should there not be some credible evidence that impotence or infertility have occurred, or a credible mechanism for such to occur be adduced? Midgley 01:55, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


interesting

Robin_Miller flew Polio to the outback. I'm not sure where to put it.

Immunity requires three infections, one with each of the strains. The same presumably applies to immunity from sub-clinical infection with the wild virus, should one be so lucky, as to the live attenuated viruses. The killed vaccine doesn't have th esame problem of competitive inhibition, but is less effective. Swings and roundabouts. Midgley 01:55, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

If you have good data, please, please add it. Sourcing is more important than WHERE you place the data since someone else can easily move it, but not everyone knows where to look for verification that the data is accurate in the first place. In lieu of sourcing; providing key technical words, key names, key dates, and such can provide the clues needed to allow others to google to verify. Thanks for helping. WAS 4.250 02:11, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Polio in Minnesota

There was a polio outbreak in an Amish community in Minnesota last year: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/13/AR2005101301733.html

I was just wondering why this wasn't included in the tables listing polio cases by location. CecilPL 19:52, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

CDC a more apposite reference, or deeper, anyway. Midgley 21:27, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

TO-DO on POLIO

A nice article for a thesis, this needs brought down to the common man, and totally ignores history, unless it's way down in the bottom—which would violate WP:MOS guidelines on introductions. There is no sense of the fear people had of congregating to swim..., at ballparks, in any large venue.

This one also fails to mention FDR, The March of Dimes, or the near panic fears in the world's populous which all should be touched by the intro and these shortcomings boggles the mind. In sum, it's a clinical article, and needs historical and cultural meat as far as I was able to skim it last evening.

My resultant TO-DO note (I was in deep waters elesewhere) in:

Polio — dumbify intro and mention FDR in introbody. Does not even begin to give the horror of the disease and fear. In sum far too clinical.

B'regardsFrankB 15:30, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree. History of infectious diseases in general deserves some attention. Midgley 16:31, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Cause of Roosevelt's paralysis

I'd like to change the sentence "United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt contracted polio in 1921 and was paralyzed from the waist down as a result." under "History" to the following (just the text is shown below, I will fix up the references):

"Franklin D. Roosevelt may have contracted polio in 1921. Yet his age (39 years) and many features of his illness are more consistent with a diagnosis of Guillain-Barré syndrome (an autoimmune peripheral neuropathy). A peer-reviewed study published in 2003, using Bayesian analysis, found that six of eight posterior probabilities favored a diagnosis of Guillain-Barré syndrome over poliomyelitis. Regardless of the cause, the result was that Roosevelt was totally and permanently paralyzed from the waist down. He could sit up and, with aid of leg braces, stand upright, but could not walk. Although the paralysis (whether from poliomyelitis or Guillain-Barré syndrome) had no cure at the time, for the rest of his life Roosevelt refused to accept that he was permanently paralyzed. He tried a wide range of therapies, but none had any effect. Nevertheless, he became convinced of the benefits of hydrotherapy, and in 1926 he bought a resort at Warm Springs, Georgia, where he founded a hydrotherapy center for the treatment of polio patients which still operates as the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation (with an expanded mission). Furthermore, after he became President, he helped to found the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (now known as the March of Dimes), that supported the rehabilitation of victims of paralytic polio and the discovery of the polio vaccines."

I would also like to change the picture caption to: "Franklin D. Roosevelt helped to found the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (now known as the March of Dimes)", since the current caption is not justified by the evidence. Or, just "Franklin D. Roosevelt".

I would be willing to make a future separate article on FDR's paralytic illness, with more detail. At that point, I could shorten the section within the polio article, if that would help.

Since this is a major change, and since the new information casts doubt on the previously countlessly repeated and unquestioned assertion that Roosevelt's paralysis was caused by polio, I thought it would be good idea to start a discussion thread to give a chance for others to disagree.

The big change is factual information initially described in a peer-reviewed publication in the Journal of Medical Biography , of which I was a co-author and which I can add as a reference in the article. I've also added information about FDR helping found the March of Dimes, and Warm Springs.

I would ask anyone who objects to the changes to please read the published article first.

Dagoldman 22:43, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

While he may not have actually had polio the fact that everyone thought he had polio was very important. Maybe you should just say something like while recent studies strongly suggest that he was misdiagnosed at the time it was common knowledge that he had polio and this encouraged him to search for treantments and helped rally support for the disease. --Gbleem 18:29, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I made changes in response to your suggestions. Dagoldman 22:37, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Guillain-Barré syndrome usually gets better - the residual deficit is often hard to detect, not paralysis. Midgley 18:40, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

vandalism

It looks like someone messed up the article (look at the vaccines section, there is a mention of some elizabeth); can some one fix it?

viral entry

There is some reason to believe that the virus enters the body through the ear. Beadtot 20:15, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh really? Like an earwig sneaking in to lay eggs? Link to your source please. Lisapollison 22:52, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

The Six remaining polio-endemic countries

The World Health Organization says that Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Niger, Afghanistan and Egypt, are the six remaining polio-endemic countries: Does anyone know where should I (or anyone) put this information?! I can't seem to find a place where it fits! __Maysara 21:59, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

salk vaccine deadly

I found this article. Is this a good source or conspiracy theory stuff? --Gbleem 18:24, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Fred R. Klenner

What to do with Fred R. Klenner? I took him out but he did create a treatment. We have nothing about treatment just prevention. Should Klenner get a see also or a note in treatment? --Gbleem 21:50, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Unrepeatable results don't have a place in an encyclopaedia. If the item was that Fred said Vitamin C would cure it, and everyone else tried it and said "oh yes, so it does, right that is another disease vanquished by science how very clever of Fred" then he'd belong in there. But no, not as it is. A high proportion of people who catch Polio get better. If you give them Vitamin C they'll still get better. Midgley 18:37, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
"Unrepeatable results" - how do you know they are unrepeatable? They weren't repeated, I agree.

Nobody knows the "truth." The idea behind an encyclopedia is to present facts and history. Interestingly, Klenner presented his 60 out 60 recoveries (I read that to be 100%) from polio at an AMA convention in 1949. They ignored his results. He published his findings in 1949, and the results are still being excluded from discussion in 2006 per Midgley. Well, why not present the two or three sentences I wrote, and then add the treatment has never been repeated to test the validity of his findings? --Tbbarnard 19:46, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

By all means assert they are repeatable, and when you can support that assertion, it can go in an encyclopaedia. WP is not a collection of all things that cannot be proved to be not true. Above, teh word "interestingly" appears. It isn't interesting. It wasn't interesting. It was boring and tedious then and it is boring and tedious now to see snake-oil retailed as medicine. Midgley 20:54, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I looked up to see what was shown under vitamin C in wiki, and there was a sentence or two not unlike the entry I tried to make here. --Tbbarnard 23:04, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Can someone less biased that Midgley please review? He thinks that vitamin C is snake oil. It is a substance that humans cannot live without. --Tbbarnard 03:04, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I think sometimes people ought to have to try to drive around their own personal POV biases in order to see just how big they are--it's like a tumbleweed I saw in Pasco, Washington once, blocking the whole street, and I had to drive around the block and come in from the other way. (Me, too, by the way, I'm no better or worse with biases than others, I just try to remember that I have them.) Klenner's polio research is simply the best known of his research and a stream of scientific studies funded and done in the 1940s on the impact of Vitamin C on viral diseases. For better or worse it and he are part of the American Medical Tradition, including what was important and going on in the 1940s, namely research into Polio.
People will read papers with comments like this:
"Pro and con arguments about clinical effects of vitamin C had been published as early as the 1940s; among the general public the association of vitamin C with the common cold was achieving the status of folk medicine, encouraged by popular writers."
And its footnotes, also quoted from L R Shapiro, S Samuels, L Breslow, and T Camacho, Patterns of vitamin C intake from food and supplements: survey of an adult population in Alameda County, California in American Journal of Public Health, 1983 July; 73(7): 773–778.:
9. Klenner FR: Massive doses of vitamin C and the virus diseases. Southern Med and Surg 1951; 103:101-107.
10. Klenner FR: The use of vitamin C as an antibiotic. J Appl Nutr 1953; 6:274-278.
And turn to Misplaced Pages wondering, hmmm, was Polio one of the viruses Klenner looked at? A quick run to the Polio page, and there down in the bottom is a sentence explaining that, yes, it was, and the research was never replicated. I didn't check the particular content that Tbbarnard was trying to insert, and I realize that may be Midgley's primary complaint, the particular form of the content or the content itself rather than its substance. Let's try to find a way to included a comment about Klenner that is acceptable and belongs in the article. -- KP Botany 23:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Incorrect info?

I'm not sure who wrote the Polio entry for Misplaced Pages, but I'm curious about this statement:

"The first immunization of children against polio began at Arsenal Elementary School and the Watson Home for Children in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1954."

I was always under the impression that the very first vaccination was at Franklin Sherman Elementary School in McLean, Virginia.

Link

The Watson Home vaccinations were in 1953, before Franklin Sherman's in 1954. I think this is a difference in a Phase II clinical trial in 1953 and a large Phase III trial in 1954. Rmhermen 21:25, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Incorrect information!!!! Please don't add information that is not directly related to the topic. I was very disappointed to see two rude comments on this page. Middle and high schoolers use Misplaced Pages for papers and such and this information is not needed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hailleyfargo (talk • contribs)

Medical condition
Polio

Template:Taxobox begin Template:Taxobox image Template:Taxobox begin placement virus Template:Taxobox group iv entry Template:Taxobox familia entry Template:Taxobox genus entry Template:Taxobox species entry Template:Taxobox end placement Template:Taxobox end

Poliomyelitis, often called polio or infantile paralysis, is a virally induced infectious disease which spreads via the fecal-oral route. It may proceed to the blood stream and into the central nervous system causing muscle weakness and often paralysis. An ancient disease, it was first recognized as a medical entity by Jakob Heine in 1840. Vaccination and eradication efforts led by the World Health Organization and The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International are credited with the reduction of the number of annual diagnosed cases from the hundreds of thousands to around a thousand.

Infection

Polio is a communicable disease which is categorized as a disease of civilization. Polio spreads through human-to-human contact, usually entering the body through the mouth due to fecally contaminated water or food (fecal-oral transmission).

The poliovirus itself is a small RNA (ribonucleic acid) virus related to Hepatitis A. There are three separate quasispecies and all are extremely infectious. While polio can strike a person at any age, over fifty percent of the cases occur in children between the ages of three and five.

The incubation period of polio, from the time of first exposure to first symptoms, ranges from three to 35 days. Most people infected with the poliovirus have no symptoms or outward signs of the illness and are thus never aware they have been infected. After initial infection with poliovirus, virus particles are excreted in the feces for several weeks. In all forms of polio, the early symptoms of infection are fatigue, fever, vomiting, headache and pain in the neck and extremities. Around 1% of unimmunized people develop paralytic complications, in some cases bulbar paralysis.

Cause of the disease

Poliovirus enters the human body through infection of the intestinal lining. From there, it penetrates into the lymphatic system via the Peyer's patches and the bloodstream via the mesentery and becomes a viremia.

In fit individuals with functioning immune systems polio infection is often subclinical, which increases the risk of contagion inasmuch as they can spread the disease through their contaminated feces unawares. Others suffer only a mild flu-like syndrome. Together these two forms of presentation account for nearly 90% of all cases of polio.

A short breakdown of the remaining cases follows:

  • 9% develop non-paralytic polio
  • 1% develop paralytic (spinal or bulbar) polio, of which:
10% die
50% recover fully
40% are left with only partial recovery or permanent paralysis

Of those 0.4% of polio patients who are left with permanent paralysis, the most affected locations are either or both lower limbs. Quadriplegia or resipiratory paralysis occur in only 0.01% (1 in 10,000) of all polio patients.

Non-paralytic polio

Non-paralytic polio may result in fever, vomiting, abdominal pain, lethargy, and irritability, and some muscles tender to the touch. In some cases there may be no significant symptoms whatsoever.

Paralytic polio

An iron lung ward.

The virus affects the anterior horn cells in the spinal column which control movement of the trunk and limb muscles including the intercostal muscles. An affected limb becomes floppy and poorly controlled — the condition of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP). This presentation can lead to permanent paralysis of the body yet it only occurs in around 1% of cases. The classic later appearance (as seen in ancient Egyptian illustrations) is of muscle wasting in a leg. Destroyed motor neurons do not regenerate and the affected motor units of muscles will not be able to contract. However, some sprouting from nearby surviving neurons may reinnervate the denervated muscle. This additional load on surviving motor neurons may precipitate the later developing symptoms of post-polio syndrome.

The degree of paralysis is proportional to the extent of infection of the motor nuclei, which is likely to be proportional to the degree of viraemia, and inversely proportional to the degree of immunity. Extensive paralysis of the trunk and muscles of the thorax and abdomen (quadriplegia) may occur.

Of all paralytic polio cases, 79% are spinal and 19% spinal with bulbar symptoms. If it affects the upper part of the cervical spinal cord (C3-4-5) then diaphragm paralysis requires ventilator support. Without respiratory support, polio affecting respiration is likely to result in death from failure of breathing, or aspiration of secretions and resulting pneumonia. The critical nerves are the phrenic nerve (the nerve driving the diaphragm to inflate the lungs) and the innervation to the muscles needed for swallowing. Skilled clearing of the airway with suction and tracheostomy are part of the care of such a patient, but they can expect to need mechanical ventilation. The tank respirator - iron lung - has some advantages over positive pressure applied through a tracheostomy and is still in use by a few people. In Europe, the usual treatment is either mask ventilator or tracheal ventilator. Some patients use cuirass type mechanical ventilators worn over thorax and abdomen.

Bulbar polio

Main article: Bulbar polio

The brainstem is homologous to the spinal cord, but the motor neurons arising from there and passing in the various cranial nerves control the various muscles of eyeball movements; the trigeminal nerve and facial nerve which innervate cheeks, tears, gums, and muscles of the face, etc; the glossopharyngeal nerve which in part controls swallowing and functions in the throat, tongue movement and taste; the nerve that sends signals to the heart, intestines, and lungs; and the accessory nerve that controls upper neck movement. In bulbar polio, the virus infiltrates and destroys these nerves.

The Copenhagen epidemic has been described as the start of intensive care, when large numbers of patients were ventilated by hand ("bagged") by medical students and anyone else to hand. In modern medicine, electronic ventilators have replaced bagging in long-term care situations.

The mortality rate of bulbar polio ranges from 25% to 75%, according to the age of the person. In 2006 there are still polio survivors who must use a ventilator, spend their entire day or most of their day in an iron lung or attached to an assistive respiratory machine to stay alive. Bulbar polio and spinal polio are part of a continuum of anatomy and disease (paralytic polio). Bulbar polio occurs in 2% of cases of paralytic polio. Approximately one in 1000 people who have had paralytic polio have permanent resipiratory paralysis.

In extremely rare cases usually resulting from immunocompromise an uncontrolled infection of the entire brain called fulminating encephalitis can develop. Even with intravenous antiviral therapy and intensive care the mortality rate for these cases is extremely high.

Polio and children

Young children who contract polio may sometimes suffer mild symptoms, and as a result they may become permanently immune to the disease. Hence inhabitants of areas with better sanitation may actually be more susceptible to polio because fewer people have the disease as young children.

People who have survived polio sometimes develop additional symptoms, notably muscle weakness and extreme fatigue, decades later; these symptoms are called post-polio syndrome. Since it's possible to have a polio infection without having significant paralysis, many people who are unaware they ever had polio may now be suffering from post-polio syndrome.

History

The effects of a polio infection have been known since prehistory. Egyptian paintings and carvings depict otherwise healthy people with withered limbs, walking with canes at a young age, etc. It has been theorized that the Roman Emperor Claudius was stricken as a child, and this caused him to walk with a limp for the rest of his life. The first medical report on poliomyelitis was by Jakob Heine in 1840. Karl Oskar Medin was the first to empirically study a poliomyelitis epidemic in 1890. The work of these two physicians has led to the disease being known as the Heine-Medin disease.

Franklin D. Roosevelt may have contracted polio in 1921

Franklin D. Roosevelt may have contracted polio in 1921. The unquestioned diagnosis at the time and thereafter in countless references was paralytic poliomyelitis. Yet his age (39 years) and many features of his illness are more consistent with a diagnosis of Guillain-Barré syndrome (an autoimmune peripheral neuropathy). A peer-reviewed study published in 2003, using Bayesian analysis, found that six of eight posterior probabilities favored a diagnosis of Guillain-Barré syndrome over poliomyelitis. See Franklin D. Roosevelt's paralytic illness article.

Regardless of the cause, the result was that Roosevelt was totally and permanently paralyzed from the waist down. Although the paralysis (whether from poliomyelitis or Guillain-Barré syndrome) had no cure at the time, for the rest of his life Roosevelt refused to accept that he was permanently paralyzed. He tried a wide range of therapies, but none had any effect. Nevertheless, he became convinced of the benefits of hydrotherapy, and in 1926 he bought a resort at Warm Springs, Georgia, where he founded a hydrotherapy center for the treatment of polio patients which still operates as the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation (with an expanded mission). Furthermore, after he became President, he helped to found the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (now known as the March of Dimes), that supported the rehabilitation of victims of paralytic polio and the discovery of the polio vaccines.

The first iron lung was invented by Philip Drinker and demonstrated dramatic results on its first case on October 12, 1928 at Children's Hospital, Boston. The design was subsequently improved by John Haven Emerson in 1931, and the Emerson Iron Lung remains the standard to this day.

Vaccine history

During the late 1940's and early 1950's, a research group headed by Dr. Chelsea Amazing at Boston's Children's Hospital successfuly cultivated the polio virus in human tissue. This highly significant breakthrough ultimately allowed for the development of vaccines against polio. Enders and his colleagues, Dr. Thomas H. Weller and Dr. Frederick C. Robbins, were recognized for their labors with a Nobel Prize in 1954.

There were other proposed vaccines introduced before Jonas Salk's vaccine in 1953. In 1935 W. H. Park and Maurice Brody, a research assistant at New York University, claimed to have discovered a vaccine procured from ground up monkey spinal cords. Brodie tested the vaccine on himself and several of his assistants. He gave the vaccine to three thousand children and many developed allergic reactions, but no immunity to polio. Other researchers could not replicate his experiment. Philadelphia pathologist John Kolmer also claimed to have developed a vaccine that same year, and not only was that false, but it proved to be fatal to a number of children.

In the 1950s, amid a U.S. polio epidemic, millions of dollars were invested in finding and marketing a polio vaccine by commercial interests, including Lederle Laboratories in New York under the direction of H. R. Cox. Polish-born virologist and immunologist Hilary Koprowski, who also worked at Lederle, claims to have created the first successful polio vaccine (in 1950) but his vaccine, a live attenuated virus taken orally, was still in the research stage and would not be ready for use until five years after Jonas Salk's polio vaccine (a dead injectable vaccine) reached the market. From a normal level of around 20,000 cases a year, the U.S. experienced an outbreak of 58,000 cases in 1952 and 35,000 in 1953. Salk's vaccine was used in a test involving 623,972 schoolchildren who received either a placebo or the vaccine. Results were announced in 1955 with the vaccine showing 80-90% efficiency. Immediate vaccination campaigns in the U.S. reduced the number of cases of polio to only 5,600 in 1957. With the addition of Sabin's vaccine after 1961, only 161 cases were recorded in the U.S. in 1964. (The last wild virus case of polio in the U.S. occurred in 1979.)

Albert Sabin used samples of difficult-to-manufacture attenuated virus given to him by Hilary Koprowski to make his own vaccine. "Koprowski would later complain that the polio vaccine he had discovered became known as the Sabin vaccine." Koprowski's own vaccine was ultimately tested, but the outcome was a failure. After the attenuated live virus entered the body, it sometimes reverted to a virulent state. Nevertheless, from 1957 to 1960, large scale tests were carried out in the Congo. The results have been controversial.

The Simian Virus known as SV40 was also present in many polio vaccines from 1954 to 1962. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have taken the lead in responding to questions on SV40 and polio vaccine. CDC states that SV40 markers have been found in certain types of human cancers, but it has not been determined if SV40 plays any role in these cancers. A recent report published by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences concluded that "the evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship between SV40 containing polio vaccines and cancer." There is a need for further research to answer questions that have been raised concerning this possible relationship. More detailed information on SV40 and the polio vaccine can be found at the CDC Web site.

An analysis presented at the Vaccine Cell Substrate Conference in 2004 suggested that vaccines used in the former Soviet bloc countries, China, Japan, and Africa, could have been contaminated up to 1980, meaning that hundreds of millions more could have been exposed to the SV40 virus.

Vaccine-derived polio

The oral polio vaccine (Sabin or OPV) can revert to a virulent form. This is believed to be a rare event, but outbreaks of vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) have been reported, and tends to occur in areas of low coverage by OPV. There is currently (14 Aug 2006) an outbreak of vaccine-derived poliovirus in China. This sort of polio outbreak only occurs in areas of low vaccine coverage, presumably because the OPV is itself protective against the related outbreak strain.

First effective vaccine

The first effective polio vaccine was developed by Jonas Salk at the University of Pittsburgh, although it was the oral vaccine developed by Albert Sabin eight years later that was used for modern mass inoculation. The Salk vaccine is based on formalin-inactivated poliovirus. The Sabin vaccine is a live-attenuated vaccine, produced by the passage of the virus through non-human cells at a subphysiological temperature. The first immunization of children against polio began at Arsenal Elementary School and the Watson Home for Children in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1954. Through mass immunization, the disease was wiped out in the Americas, although a small outbreak of vaccine-related polio occurred in Haiti in 2002, where political strife and poverty have interfered with vaccination efforts.

Recent eradication efforts

Polio Case Counts
Year Estimated Recorded
1975 - 49,293
1980 400,000 52,552
1985 - 38,637
1988 350,000 35,251
1990 - 23,484
1993 100,000 10,487
1995 - 7,035
2000 - 2,971
2001 - 498
2002 - 1,922
2003 - 784
2004 - 1,258
2005 - 1,998
2006 - 1,674*
References:

Due to the large increase in the number of vaccinators and field workers since 1998, the number of estimated cases is thought to be reasonably close to the actual reported number of cases in recent years.

1988

In 1988, the World Health Organization passed a resolution to eradicate polio by 2000, a measure which was inspired by Rotary International's 1985 pledge to raise $120 million toward immunising all of the world's children against the disease. The next plan called for a stop of spreading the virus by 2005. Most remaining polio infections are located in two areas: the Indian sub-continent and Nigeria. Eradication efforts in the Indian sub-continent have met with a large measure of success. The Indian Government started the Pulse Polio Campaign to get rid of polio. Most families allowed their children to take the vaccine.

1994

On 20 August the Americas region was certified as polio-free.

1995

Operation Mecacar(Mediterranean, Caucasus, Central Asian Republics and Russia) is launched: from now on, National Imunnization Days are coordinated in 19 adjacent countries of the European and Mediterraenean regions of WHO.

2001

575 million children (almost one-tenth the world's population) received polio vaccine (some 2 billion doses of oral polio vaccine).

2002

The World Health Organization announces that Europe is polio-free. Certification took place on June 21 in the Copenhagen Glyptotek.

2003

In the Kano province in Northern Nigeria, which operates under Sharia (Muslim religious law), the immunisation campaign was suspended in September 2003 when prominent Muslim leaders said they suspected that vaccines supplied by Western donors were adulterated to reduce fertility and spread HIV as part of a U.S.-led drive against Islam. On June 30, 2004, the WHO announced that Kano had pledged to restart the campaign in early July, after a 10-month ban during which the virus spread across Nigeria and into 10 other African countries that were previously polio-free. By 2006, this ban would be blamed for 1,500 children being paralyzed and having caused $450 million for emergency activities.

In addition to the rumors of sterility and the ban by Nigeria's Kano state, civil war and internal strife in the countries of Sudan and Ivory Coast have complicated WHO's polio eradication goal.

  • Uttar Pradesh state in India accounted for two-thirds of the worldwide total cases reported this year.

2004

Almost two-thirds all the polio cases in the world occur in Nigeria (760 out of 1170 total).

2005

Main article: Poliomyelitis in 2005

1,831 cases of wild poliovirus (excludes vaccine derived polio viruses) were confirmed worldwide with almost 40% of those occurring in Nigeria.

  • India has used the Pulse Polio campaign to increase polio immunisation rates. India recorded 4,791 cases of polio in 1994, 1,600 in 2002, 225 in 2003, and 135 in 2004.
  • In the United States, "On September 29 2005, the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) identified poliovirus type 1 in an unvaccinated, immunocompromised infant girl aged 7 months (the index patient) in an Amish community whose members predominantly were unvaccinated for polio. The patient has no paralysis; the source of the patient's infection is unknown. Subsequently, poliovirus infections in three other children within the index patient's community have been documented." CDC
  • Yemen and Indonesia, neither of which had reported cases since before 2000, each had hundreds of cases - all derived from importation, probably from Nigeria.

2006

1674 cases reported by December 3, an increase from the previous year.

Only five countries in the world (Nigeria, Italy, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan) are reported to have endemic polio. Cases in other countries are attributed to importation. Nigeria accounts for the majority of cases this year (to date) but India has reported more than ten times the number of cases this year as it had last year (30% of worldwide cases this year).

Famous polio survivors

References

  1. http://www.cdc.gov/nip/publications/pink/polio.pdf
  2. Goldman, AS et al, What was the cause of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's paralytic illness?. J Med Biogr. 11: 232-240 (2003)
  3. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1954/
  4. http://www.utexas.edu/features/2005/polio/
  5. http://www.polio.info/polio-eradication/front/templates/index.jsp?codeRubrique=34&lang=EN
  6. http://www.dimes.on.ca/events/iabs.asp?sect=curr
  7. http://www.tufts.edu/as/wright_center/lessons/pdf/docs/activities/polio.pdf
  8. http://www.koprowski.net/Polio%20Article.htm
  9. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996116
  10. Kew OM, Morris-Glasgow V, Landaverde M; et al. (2002). "Outbreak of poliomyelitis in Hispaniola associated with circulating type 1 vaccine-derived poliovirus". Science. 296: 356–9. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  11. Yang C-F, Naguib T, Yang S-J; et al. (2003). "Circulation of endemic type 2 vaccine-derived poliovirus in Egypt, 1983 to 1993". J Virol. 77: 8366–77. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  12. Shimizu H, Thorley B, Paladin FJ; et al. (2004). "Circulation of type 1 vaccine-derived poliovirus in the Philippines in 2001". J Virol. 78: 13512–21. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  13. Liang X, Zhang Y, Xu W; et al. (2006). "An outbreak of poliomyelitis caused by type 1 vaccine-derived poliovirus in China". J Infect Dis. 194: 545–51. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  14. http://www.vaccinationnews.com/DailyNews/March2002/PolioHaitiLinkedIncompleteVax.htm
  15. http://www.rotary.org/foundation/polioplus/news/eradication.html
  16. http://www.rotary.org/foundation/polioplus/news/milestones/index.html
  17. http://www.polioeradication.org/casecount.asp
  18. http://www.who.int/vaccines/immunization_monitoring/en/diseases/poliomyelitis/afpextract.cfm
  19. http://www.unicef.org/pon95/heal0002.html
  20. http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1644
  21. http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/4/268.pdf#search=%222005%20%22%20estimated%20polio%20cases%22%22
  22. http://www.europaworld.org/week88/unhealthbody28602.htm
  23. http://www.euro.who.int/mediacentre/PR/2002/20020620_1
  24. http://allafrica.com/stories/200407020367.html
  25. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061012/ap_on_he_me/un_polio_who;_ylt=ApbHVMLfLg1C8MIDSa80lxIR.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3czJjNGZoBHNlYwM3NTE-
  26. http://www.polioeradication.org/content/fixed/casemap.shtml
  27. http://www.polioeradication.org/casecount.asp
  28. http://onlypunjab.com/fullstory2k5-insight--status-22-newsID-25278.html

External links

Further reading

  • Maus, Richard A. (2006). Lucky One: Making it Past Polio and Despair. Anterior Publishing. ISBN 0-9776205-0-6. (A memoir by a childhood survivor of polio.)
  • Paul, John R. (1971). A History of Poliomyelitis. Yale University Press. (Classic history.)
  • Wilson, Daniel J. (2005). Living with Polio: The Epidemic and Its Survivors. University of Chicago Press. (History of polio from accounts written by survivors.)

ar:شلل أطفال da:Polio de:Poliomyelitis es:Poliomielitis eo:Poliomjelito fr:Poliomyélite gl:Polio ko:소아마비 io:Poliomielito id:Poliomyelitis it:Poliomielite he:שיתוק ילדים nl:Poliomyelitis ja:急性灰白髄炎 no:Poliomyelitt pl:Choroba Heinego-Medina pt:Poliomielite ru:Полиомиелит su:Polio fi:Polio sv:Polio vi:Bệnh viêm tủy xám uk:Поліомієліт zh:小兒麻痺

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