Polio Epidemics

Polio an American story is a scholarly readable and informative book which covers the lives of many American eminent scientists who struggled a lot to eradicate polio. This book mainly focuses on the mid twentieth century where the people are very eager to find a vaccine to eradicate polio .This book also covers the entire topics from appearance of polio symptoms to post polio syndrome which shows the valuable thesis done by David M. Oshinsky.

Heather Green Wooten’s The Polio Years in Texas: Battling a Terrifying Unknown chronicles the history of polio in Texas in a very extensive timeline. The book goes all the way back to the beginning of the polio epidemic and essentially progresses to the present. The time in this book certainly exceeds that of, The Captured and Isaac’s Storm. The Captured chronicled a long period of captivity, but did not appear to exceed a decade. Isaac’s Storm traced the initial development of Weather Bureau and covered a great period, but did not exceed that of The Polio Years. Several themes begin to emerge further into the book. Obvious themes included, the support for March of Dimes, impact on families affected by polio, the growth and development of rehabilitation facilities, and more importantly the response to the disease by Texans. Oddly, Wooten discusses the fact that other diseases such as, measles, diphtheria, and tuberculosis took more lives than Polio. However, people feared Polio more than the rest. Wooten attributes polio’s terrifying affect to the uncertainty. Several uncertainties such as, how to prevent it, why did some become crippled, why did some die, and why did it only essentially affected children made polio very terrifying in the 20th century. Texas appeared to have been hit the hardest in comparison to other states. Wooten’s research examined the time during and then after World War II. During this period, Texas saw an immense amount of polio contractions. Per

Poliomyelitis was a highly infectious disease that spread through many Americans in the early 20th century. As a matter of fact, over 3,000 Americans died of the disease each year. Families were overwhelmingly desperate for doctors to find a cure. When one suffered from polio, they generally experienced painful symptoms which included not only fatigue and muscle weakness, but even death. Therefore, when the polio vaccine was introduced by scientist Jonas Salk in 1953, it greatly contributed to Americans in numerous positive ways. Environmentally, the vaccine saved countless young American lives affected by the disease thus decreasing American mortality rates. Socially, the polio vaccine convenienced families who were either directly afflicted

With a substantial amount of preventive healthcare advancements behind them, the American medical community turned its attention to the deadly polio virus plaguing America. From 1937 to 1952, known cases of Americans contracting polio skyrocketed from ten thousand to a staggering figure of roughly fifty-seven thousand cases. Of those cases within that time period, approximately one thousand five hundred deaths as a result of polio were recorded. In the year 1953, The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis provided the scientist Dr. Jonas Salk with the tools necessary to research, and develop a working vaccine to combat the devastating polio disease. After much trial and error, Dr. Salk was finally able to create what he felt was a successful polio vaccination, and proceeded to conduct a field test. After resounding success, manufacturing instructions for the Salk vaccine were sent to a series of scientific laboratories for immediate production and administration to American children. The disaster that occurred next will forever be known through American medical history as the Cutter Incident (named so after one of the labs that administered the polio vaccine). This medical crisis sent shockwaves throughout America and the medical community, and numerous lawsuits were filed against Cutter Laboratories, resulting in fewer and fewer labs willing to accept contract work in developing vaccines.

Almost 100 years later, the first polio outbreak was recorded in Vermont, with 132 cases. Another polio outbreak was recorded in 1916, but it was not just confined to one state this time, it was the whole U.S. that was affected. This would only be the start of an epidemic that wouldn't just affect the United States, but the

The last cases of naturally occurring paralytic polio in the United States were in 1979, when an outbreak occurred among the Amish in several Midwestern states. From

Max is overall healthy 2 years old boy, which is in 90th percentile for his height and weight. His BMI is 16.8.

The topic that I chose to research was the discoveries of Louis Pasteur. Mr. Pasteur made a large impact on the medical world with his discoveries. A large amount of these discoveries were motivated at the request of friends, or towns, which would request his help in solving a problem. While trying to further advance his knowledge on fermentation, he discovered the concept of germs and their relation to the spread of illnesses. He also tested the idea of live germs as vaccinations with success. Because of these concepts he discovered, the medical world was able to learn and grow significantly in limiting the spread of infections as well as introducing vaccines. His discovery also impacted the surgical world greatly. Surgeons now had the knowledge

The discovery of the polio vaccine was an important medical and scientific breakthrough because it saved many lives since the 1950s. In the summer of 1916 the great polio epidemic struck the United states. By the 1950s hundreds of thousands of people had been struck by the poliomyelitis. The highest number of cases occurred in 1953 with over 50,000 people infected with the virus.

The eradication of polio is not too far off in the future, since wild polio last reported case was back in 2012 there is hope that the world may see the end of the days of polio all together. The first step in the eradication is to eliminate Sabin derived polio virus due to its prolonged replication period that could potentially reestablish endemic and pandemic transmission. This will be accomplished with a world effort, everywhere needs to be on board to make this plan effective. Inactive polio vaccination would have to be added to the already oral polio vaccination, once this is done the goal is to take the trivalent polio vaccine and replace it with bivalent polio vaccine. Three principles need to be followed when withdrawing all oral polio

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).

The polio vaccine helped to prevent polio all around the world. It was invented in 1955. It eliminated polio in the U.S. and is trying to do the same in other parts of the world. There are 2 types of vaccine: The IPV and OPV vaccines. The IPV vaccine, created by Jonas Salk, and the OPV vaccine, created by Albert Sabin. Both of

Polio had caused 350000 cases of infection in 1988 in over 125 countries and less than 2000 cases in just about four countries in 2009 and then 406 cases in 2013. This 99% drop of polio threat is the result of endless efforts of the World Health Organization, Unicef, Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, Bill and Melinda foundation, Rotary foundation as well as governments supporting the Global Polio Eradication Initiatives with immunization. Nevertheless, the remaining 1% is posing great problem eradicating presenting various political, social, economical and technical obstacles. A more direct consideration of especial challenges for specific countries and communities could put an end to polio threat around the world.

The first clinical description of polio was given in 1789 by a British physician call Micheal underwood who referred to the disease as debility of the lower extremities. Karl Oskar medin in 1890 was the first to study polio epidemic empirically however Jakob Heine in 1840 made the first medical report on polio hence the disease became known as Heine-medin disease. By the early 1900s polio has reached epidemic proportion in countries were living standards were relatively high. This was at a time when other diseases such as tuberculosis, typhoid were on the decline. Paradoxically it is though that the rise in hygiene standards has led to a rise in

Although there is no treatment to cure polio there is treatment to be able to