David Caballero
December 1, 2014
Pre-AP English 1
Ms. Cooper
Poliomyelitis has been around for a long time but the first clinical description of the disease was in 1789, by an English physician named Michael Underwood. The death-to-case ratio is 2%-5% in children and 15%-30% for adults. Even though the number of deaths of Polio have come to a screeching halt 3,145 people died in 1952 due to the worst outbreak in the United States’s history. Poliomyelitis poses a minimal yet dangerous threat to humanity. Researchers and scientists have been largely successful in finding a cure for this disease. Looking to the future, the biggest concern is the eradication of this disease to be slowed. The effects of this disease are very harmful but are not easily transmitted. There are three different types of infections which include subclinical, nonparalytic, and paralytic. Patients with subclinical polio may not have any symptoms or have mild symptoms that may last 72 hours or less. A few symptoms that can result in the subclinical polio infection can be general discomfort or uneasiness, headache and slight fever, or red throat, slight throat, and lastly vomiting. (NIH). Then patients who have managed to contract nonparalytic polio will not become paralyzed if they are infected with it. Some symptoms can be fever, sore throat, headache, vomiting, meningitis, and fatigue. While it may vary a few more serious symptoms can be back pain or stiffness, neck pain or stiffness, pain or
Nobody has ever discovered completely how it is that polio is spread. The best evidence suggests that the virus is excreted in the stool and passed through hand to hand or hand to mouth contact by people who do not wash their hands properly or often enough. It was during the first few years of the fifties and many years before then, that health department officials
Poliomyelitis (polio) is a disease that attacks the nervous tissue in the spinal cord and the brain stem resulting in paralysis (Document One). Polio is caused by the poliovirus, but it is unknown how this virus is acquired. The virus enters the digestive tract and stays in the intestines for up to eight weeks, and then attacks the lymphatic system, the blood stream and eventually travels to the brain and spine (Document Four). Once it is infected in one’s body, the disease is highly contagious and can be spread through contact of saliva, food, germs, or feces (Document Two). “The poliovirus causes most of its infections in the summer and fall. At one time, summer epidemics of polio were common and greatly feared” (Document Four). This may
Once America’s most feared diseases and causing death and paralysis across the country, thanks to vaccination, there are no reports of polio in the United States.
Poliomyelitis (polio) is an infectious disease caused by the polio virus and is spread from person to person through faecal-oral transmission which means; stool entering the mouth or consumption of food containing stool from an infection person. The poliovirus resides in the intestinal tract and mucus in the nose and throat. Contact with infected respiratory secretions or even saliva can cause poliovirus transmission. This mode of transmission is known as oral-oral transmission. Polio became prevalent in the United States of America (U.S) in the 1940s and 1950s.this was followed by outbreaks of the disease that crippled tens of thousands in North America. Polio eradication is aimed at reducing the global incidence of polio to zero through deliberate efforts to a point that it requires no further control. Polio eradication is to be achieved through interruption of endemic transmission of poliovirus through vaccination. This saw the wide use of the inactivated polio virus (IPV) that was administered orally (OPV); oral polio vaccine.
The polio virus helped to lay the road for the sanitation reform because it was transmitted by fecal-oral route. During the incubation phase of 7 to 14 days, replication occurred in the pharynx and intestines before initiating an immune response. Donna Wheeler (2011), identified three subtypes of polio: abortive, nonparalytic, and paralytic. Abortive polio symptoms are described as flu-like symptoms and nonparalytic polio resembles viral meningitis. Paralytic polio, on the other hand resulted in muscle pain that could eventually result in
On their website, they regularly report any outbreaks that have been reported to keep the general public informed. Health Care Professionals (HCP) are required to report a suspected case of polio within 4 hours if it is a confirmed paralytic poliomyelitis case (2015). The HCP is required to keep the patient isolated if they suspect a case of polio so that can't transmit to others. They are to immediately report this case to the health department. The HCP must do diagnostic testing for the polio viruses including collecting specimens such as 2 stool specimens and 2 throat swab that are supposed to be 24 hours apart and within 14 days of the suspected onset. This will allow detention of the
The word poliomyelitis is derived from two Greek words, polio meaning grey and myelon meaning marrow which indicates the spinal cord. The classic manifestation of paralysis is the effect of polio virus on the spine (Paul, 1971). Ancient records mention crippling diseases compatible with poliomyelitis. A weakness of the lower limbs in children that was identifiable as poliomyelitis was first described by Michael Underwood in 1789. The first outbreaks were reported in the early 19th century and in 1843 in Europe and the United States respectively. For the next century, polio epidemics were reported from developed countries in the Northern Hemisphere each summer and fall. As years passed, the severity of the epidemics and the average age of persons affected increased (Birmingham et al.,1997). This led to an increase in the number of deaths as a resulting from polio. Polio cases hit a peak in the USA in 1952, where more than 21,000 paralytic cases were reported (Paul, 1971). However, polio incidence declined rapidly following introduction of
The incubation period for poliomyelitis is usually 6 to 20 days with a range of 3 to 35 days (Paul, 1971). The response to poliovirus infection is highly variable and has been categorized on the basis of the severity of clinical presentation. Up to 99% of all polio infections are inapparent or asymptomatic. Estimates of the ratio of inapparent to paralytic illness vary from 50:1 to 1,000:1 (usually 200:1). Infected persons without symptoms shed virus in the stool and are able to transmit the virus to others (Diop et al., 2014).
This disease has killed and paralyzed many. One of polio’s fatal symptoms is paralyzing muscles that help you breathe (“Polio Vaccine”).
Polio was in deed around for centuries and more-so prior to the epidemic however, back in the 1800’s polio was a uncommon thing, or because there were very cases that have very few symptoms that later went away. Some suggest that since many people lived in rural area , small town and cities and under what some would say unsanitary conditions it was because of that, it led to their polio exposure early on and reduced the likelihood of developing it and passing it to child, and if the child did develop symptoms their own body possessed the immunity needed to fight the disease. It was also believed that polio was a disease of filth and for the impoverished however, it was quickly changed to the disease of “cleanliness”. This only impacted the spread of this
Poliomyelitis, often called polio or infantile paralysis, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 90% to 95% of infections cause no symptoms.[1] Another 5 to 10% of people have minor symptoms such as: fever, headache, vomiting, diarrhea, neck stiffness and pains in the arms and legs.[1][2] These people are usually back to normal within one or two weeks. In about 0.5% of cases there is muscle weakness resulting in an inability to move.[1] This can occur over a few hours to few days.[1][2] The weakness most often involves the legs but may less commonly involve the muscles of the head, neck and diaphragm. Many but not all people fully recover. In those with muscle weakness about 2% to 5% of children and 15% to 30% of adults
The virus usually enters the environment in the feces of someone who is infected. In areas with poor sanitation, the virus easily spreads through the fecal-oral route, via contaminated water or food. A lot of the polio epidemics were unknown before the 20th century. Paralytic polio Epidemics began to appear in Europe and the United States around 1900. First report of multiple polio cases was published in 1843 and described an 1841 outbreak in Louisiana. There is a gap of fifty years before the next epidemic later polio began to make itself noticeable by having, 26 cases in Boston in 1823, 132 cases with 18 deaths in Vermont, approximately 2,500 cases in New York City. On Saturday, June 17, 1916 an official announcement of the existence of an epidemic polio infection was made in New York. On this year there were only 27,000 cases, 6,000 deaths in the U.S, and over 2,000 deaths in New York alone. Thanks to Jonas Salk on July 2, 1952 he first introduced his “killed virus” he belived that this was going to end polio so he told people that he was going to test it on his wife and children. According to Dr. Thomas Francis The vaccine on April 12, 1955 he declared the vaccine safe and effective. The vaccines had proven to be 80 to 90% effective on the basis of results in 11 states. Overall, the vaccine was administered to over 440,000 children in 44
In this term paper the discovery of the Polio vaccine will be discussed and broken down into deeper thought on why and how it was discovered. Poliomyelitis is an infectious disease that reached epidemic levels in the mid twentieth century. People that were unfortunate to receive this disease faced hardships including fevers, sore throat and vomiting(Allaby). These are just symptoms but Polio can be a vicious disease leaving their patients paralyzed. The majority of people who are diagnosed with Polio don’t get paralyzed right away or die suddenly. The symptoms are very similar to any other sickness and people who are newly diagnosed do not
Polio virus affects humans by a lytic cycle. PV1 which is usually associated with epidemics causes paralysis and consequently the most deaths. PV2 normally causes meningitis and a less severe paralysis. PV3 is usually associated with sporadic cases of polio virus. The majority of polio cases include only diarrhea symptoms or the individual is completely asymptomatic. Five percent of polio cases show flu-like symptoms of fever, malaise, headache, nausea, sore throat, upset stomach, and achy muscles. In one percent of
In cases of non-paralytic polio, the body doesn’t become paralytic but, there may be acute stiffness in the arms and legs. Non-paralytic polio may include symptoms like; fever, sore throat, headache, nausea and vomiting, fatigue, pain in the back and neck, stiffness in the arms and legs, muscle tenderness, spasms and in some of the worst cases meningitis which is an infection of the membranes surrounding the brain.