Polio's Last Stand?

What is polio?

Poliomyelitis – better known as polio - is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus. It enters the body through the mouth, typically when a person ingests food or water contaminated with feces from an infected individual. Once inside the body, the virus multiplies in the throat and intestines. From there, it passes into the bloodstream, lymph system and throughout the body.

But most people infected with the polio virus don’t show any signs of being sick. For every person that exhibits symptoms, there are 19 people who are contagious but not visibly ill. Even so, the most common symptoms are very similar to those of a cold or flu. In some cases, however, the virus moves into the central nervous system, damaging the nerve cells that transmit messages between the brain and the muscles. Depending on the amount of damage, the infected individual might experience muscle weakness or become paralyzed.

Credit: WHO

Just a few drops of oral polio vaccine (OPV) protects a child from polio for life.

Eradicating polio

Polio was once a serious global threat, but a vaccine developed in 1955 led to a drastic reduction in the number of cases. By 1979, health officials had stamped out polio in the United States. By 1994, polio had been eliminated from the Western hemisphere. Between 1988 and 2000, the number of cases worldwide fell by 99 percent. In 2004, Kofi Annan, secretary general of the United Nations, stated: “A final victory is within reach.” Today, however, the outlook is less optimistic. The deadline for eradication has come and gone twice. There were 1700 cases reported this year, which surpasses the 500 reported in 2001, or even the 700 reported in 2003.