The Deadly Polio Virus and the Intervention
Did you know there was one disease that was a nightmare for children throughout the first half of the 20th century in the western world? That disease was Polio. People it didn't kill were left disabled with some crippled, confining them to wheelchairs for life, and others experiencing an inability to breathe, and it was affecting children and both parents and children had to face this nightmare. While today, the virus doesn't exist in the west it is still existing in some places and it is impressive that polio is almost eradicated, but it has left an effect and it is still leaving an effect. It was first observed in 1909 and it is the causative agent of Poliomyelitis, and I will be writing on Poliomyelitis which is shortened to Polio.
The polio virus is the causative virus for poliomyelitis, and it is responsible for muscle disabilities as a result of damaging the neurons that come from the central nervous system and innervating the muscles, especially motor neurons. Polio affects the motor neuron, damaging it and causing atrophy. Do you remember Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), the 32nd president of the United States was diagnosed in 1921 with Polio which damaged his lower limb? Over time it was said that he was misdiagnosed and suffered from Guillain-Barre Syndrome but anyways, what I am concerned about is polio and how it damages the motor neurons. Polio affects children of less than 5 years old, and basically infants of 6 months, and it causes Asymmetric paralysis.
Poliovirus gains entrance through the mouth and replicate in the throat then travels down to the stomach and intestine then begins to replicate in the intestine. It attacks the central nervous system and then the spinal cord where it affects the motor neuron that controls muscles. It is important to know that Poliovirus is an Enterovirus that replicates in the intestine. The poliovirus as I said gets to the spinal cord through two theories, one being Viremia where the virus gets into the blood then to the spinal cord, and through retrograde axonal transport. The articles I saw picked both interchangeably. In the Spinal Cord, they attack the cells of the spinal cord. The poliovirus travels through the Axon to the cell bodies and then damages the neuron. The motor neuron at the anterior horn of the spinal cord is affected causing decreased innervation from the neurons to skeletal muscles. Infected people can be Asymptomatic and can transmit the virus through fecal matter.
In the 1900s, polio was an endemic disease and in its first outbreak, over 2000 people died and over 20 thousand were left paralyzed. The infection at that time could spread easily from person to person and it spreads from fecal to oral transmission or from oral to oral transmission. Children can exhibit no symptoms after 7 to 10 days of being infected and can be infectious for about 6 weeks.
Diagnosis of poliomyelitis is based on clear symptoms of polio, which is followed by lab tests to determine it is polio. The symptom of acute, asymmetric, flaccid paralysis and lab tests can involve isolating the virus from throat culture, stool culture, and cerebral spinal fluid via spinal tap where a needle is inserted into the spine and fluid is taken for the test.
Vaccination has become one of the world's scientific achievements in the health sector, but we cannot forget antibiotics as well. With a vaccine, there is a potential possibility to completely eradicate disease and infection. When it comes to Polio, vaccines have helped to eradicate it in western countries and developed countries eradicate polio but it is still existing in some countries in the world. There are two ways to be vaccinated against polio, they include the Sabin Polio vaccine and the Salk polio vaccine. The Sabin vaccine is a life-attenuated vaccine meaning it is not virulent and it is very effective with 3 doses. The Sabin vaccine is an oral vaccine, and it induces humoral and cell-mediated immunity. The Salk vaccine is a dead virus vaccine with 90% efficacy at 1 dose and with 3 doses, it has 99% efficacy. The Salk vaccine is administered intravenously, and it induces humoral immunity.
Thanks for your contribution to the STEMsocial community. Feel free to join us on discord to get to know the rest of us!
Please consider delegating to the @stemsocial account (85% of the curation rewards are returned).
Thanks for including @stemsocial as a beneficiary, which gives you stronger support.
This is the reason why it's very imperative to begin the vaccination of polio at early stage. A lot of children have been deformed and others being killed due to these six killer diseases. The sadness of the story is that most of our remote areas don't get these kind of polio vaccination.
It is so painful that so many children still suffer from polio around the world. Hopefully, it would be eradicated soon.