Polio Vaccine Research Paper

With the last outbreak of Polio in the US being in 1979, many today have no recollection of the terror of this disease. The disease primarily infected children, and there seemed to be no pattern to who succumbed to it. No one could feel safe. Polio as a disease presents such horrors that even those who overcome it once can be plagued by its aftereffects in later life. Before vaccines, single outbreaks could devastate entire communities. One outbreak

Since vaccines are made from inactivated cell, there are possibilities that the injected vaccines will be rejected by the body due to the immune system. One of the procedures is mixing blood serum from the vaccinated children with live poliovirus and cells in culture. If the vaccine worked, the vaccine will protect the cells and block he poliovirus but if it’s failed, worse consequences can take place. At that point, the problem is to get the cells to be tested. Scientists at the current time use monkeys which will be killed in the process. The trouble they had did not come from animal

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

(Draper 21) In fact polio can be very severe if it gets to the Central Nervous System (CNS), but otherwise is unnoticeable and seems like a normal cold. Polio, more properly called poliomyelitis,

Eradication of disease through the simple administration of a shot seems like the perfect solution to a complicated problem. Right? The presence of the polio virus had been a growing cause of hysteria throughout the course of history. With cases documented back into the 1700’s, the thought of polio, a virus that causes extensive paralysis, wrecked havoc on the minds of every mother and father in the world. This fear grew as the spread of the virus continued to span the globe. Parents everywhere from New York City to the African Congo were constantly concerned that their children would be the next to fall ill. During the height of the Polio scare of the early 20th century, scientists knowledge of the poliovirus expanded and they were able to

Poliomyelitis, commonly known as “Polio”, is an acute motor disease caused by the poliovirus that targets the anterior horn cells of the human spinal cord, and in severe cases results in acute flaccid paralysis (Alberta Health and Wellness, 2011), which can progress to permanent paralysis. It mainly affects children under the age of five, although individuals of any age may contract it (World Health Organization, 2013 [C]). Historical outbreaks, most prominently the 1916 and 1952 epidemics in the United States, led to the development of two separate vaccines: Inactivated Polio Vaccine (IPV), and Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV). Although polio has seen over a 99% decrease in cases since 1988 and has largely been eradicated in the

Most people who contract polio do not get sick (they don’t show symptoms), but they can still pass the virus through stool and spread it to other individuals (NYSDOH, 2014).

Live, attenuated vaccines are like the actual disease except they are weakened so that it can’t cause you to be infected. These are commonly used to combat the disease in order to make your body immune to it. Such diseases as the mumps, measles, and chickenpox. Inactivated vaccines are literally just how it sounds when the vaccine is so weakened that it will be ineffective unless you take multiple doses of the vaccine. Some of these include influenza and hepatitis A. Subunit vaccines contain antigens that can help boost your immune system. Commonly used for hepatitis B.

Immunizations have lowered the morbidity rate over the course of many years. Before vaccines were introduced, during 1900 through 1904, an average of 48,164 cases and 2528 deaths were caused by both severe and mild forms of smallpox in the United States. After the smallpox vaccine was introduced, the disease ceased to stop and the last case to ever be reported was in 1929. Getting vaccinated against the smallpox actually eradicated the disease, meaning it has been wiped out. Next, in 1951- 1954, on average, 16,316 polio cases and 1879 polio deaths were reported each year. Once the polio vaccine was introduced, less that 1000 cases were reported in 1962. As of 1991, wild-type polio viruses have been eliminated from the Western Hemisphere. But

His model, which used a weaker version of the pox to protect against the more virulent one, has stimulated the research and development of vaccines for other such diseases as polio, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, and measles. Following the trail left in wake of the smallpox vaccine, many of the additional vaccines soon found their way onto lists of government mandated vaccination programs. Vaccination was not always a government mandated practice; in fact, it was originally an optional source of preventative care. Under the strain of outbreak, however, local governments arranged for mandatory vaccination in order to protect the population from a wider epidemic. Eventually, the preventative merit of vaccination was taken a step further and made necessary regardless of outbreak or threat of epidemic. As a result, many states include an obligatory program for childhood immunization in order to protect children from the threat of measles, pertussis, polio, chickenpox and the like. However, the success of these programs requires the dual efforts of national entities for development and recommendation and state legislatures for implementation, like the condition of school enrollment on proof of

Every day, someone is saved because of a vaccination. A vaccine is a preventive drug that uses a small ratio of a dead or weakened virus and is designed to improve a person’s immunity and chances of survival. A vaccine is administered in one of three ways: (1) via syringe and needle injected into a muscle, (2) a nasal spray though the sinus canals, or (3) a liquid that is ingested via mouth. If a person is getting a polio vaccine, for example, then the vaccine would be made up of the the weakened or dead virus of polio and administered as mentioned above. The body then reacts to the virus creating an antibody to be produced and used by your immune system; the antibody’s job is to identify and neutralize the virus if the body is ever exposed to again. While no vaccine is 100% effective, most routine childhood vaccinations are approximately 85% to 95% effective (CDC). This means that if two people were introduced to a virus, and one person received a vaccination against the virus as a child and the other person did not, there would be a 5% chance the vaccinated person would contract the virus while the person that did not take the vaccine would have close to a 100% guarantee of becoming infected.

Without a doubt, immunizations can help prevent diseases. If there are fewer infected people, we will have fewer contagious diseases. In the last half of the twentieth century, we have eradicated crippling diseases as polio. Current diseases such as measles can be controlled by getting a vaccination which will provide protection from later infections. Many people are afraid of needles, but this does not have to be a problem any more. According to Maggie Fox of NBC News, “Already a few needle-free alternatives exist-FluMist nasal spray, which vaccinates against the flu with a squirt up the nose, is one. There are oral vaccines for cholera, typhoid and rotavirus.” These vaccinations can be given orally and nasally without any pain or discomfort.

The poliovirus is one of the most transmittable and most contagious viruses that the human population has come in contact with.  The structure of the poliovirus allows it to be able to bind to motor neuron cells within a host’s body and reproduce quickly. Like all virus’s, the poliovirus

“A 1916 Polio epidemic in the United States killed 6,000 people and paralyzed 27,000 more” (“Polio Vaccine”). This lead to the creation of the polio vaccine that has helped to prevent polio for a very long time. The IPV and OPV vaccines played a huge role in all of this. Jonas Salk, who created the IPV vaccine and Albert Sabin, who created the OPV vaccine saved millions of people all around the world from polio (Petersen, Jennifer B). The IPV and OPV polio vaccine helped eliminate polio from the United States and helped prevent polio in other parts of the world (“Polio Vaccine”).

While some vaccines are believed to have side effects, vaccinations should be required to prevent diseases; while by not vaccinating enables the risk of the return of old and evolution of new diseases with the potential to kill thousands of people. Vaccines are made of dead or weakened antigens that are injected into the body allowing the immune system to create antibodies (Goldstein 46). Unvaccinated people are at higher risk of getting sick from these preventable diseases. Diseases such as smallpox, polio and diphtheria have been completely eradicated in the United States thanks to vaccines. Polio used to be a serious disease that affected the central nervous system (Goldstein 54). Polio still affects certain parts of the world where it is harder to get vaccines (Goldstein 60).