What is Polio?

Polio or poliomyelitis is a dreaded disease that can leave a child irreversibly paralyzed or even dead. Caused by polio virus, this disease can damage the nervous system and result to paralysis in a matter of hours. This happens because the virus interrupts muscle signals, resulting to slack and weak muscles. If fresh nerve cells are not able to replace the damaged ones, the patient can suffer permanent paralysis or disfigurement. In worst cases, wherein polio virus reaches the brain and lungs, the patient may die as it will cause breathing to stop. Somebody who wears a lab coat, and is expert in this kind of disease would usually require the patient to undergo more aggressive therapy such as putting the patient in a ventilator just to survive.

How is polio virus contracted? This highly contagious viral illness begins when food or drink, or anything that is contaminated with virus found in stool, is ingested and enters the body through the mouth. When virus is able to get through, it will multiply in the intestinal tract. And the most highly at risk are children under the age of 5.

How do you know a child is infected with polio? There are three forms of poliomyelitis, and symptoms depend on the kind that affected a child. One is the abortive polio, a non-paralytic type that usually enables a patient of full recovery. Symptoms are just flu-like, so the illness is usually mistaken for something else that’s ordinary. A patient suffering from abortive polio experiences mild upper respiratory infection, diarrhea, fever, sore throat, and other symptoms similar to flu. The second type is nonparalytic polio associated to aseptic meningitis, which shows sensitivity to light and stiff neck. The third is the severe type or the paralytic polio, wherein the virus leaves the intestinal track and goes into the blood stream, affecting the nerves and causing limb and respiratory muscles.

Standard treatment of polio involves ventilators and iron lungs for the respiratory muscles. Patients who suffer form paralytic polio may have to dread people in lab coats, for they may have to face a number of operations. Surgeries are also done on the affected body parts such as spine, legs, knees, ankles, and toes. After each operation, a patient undergoes a rehabilitation period and painful exercises, forcing the patient to virtually live in hospitals instead in their homes for years.

Acute symptoms usually last in less than 2 weeks. Ill or paralytic effects, though, can last a lifetime. People who were able to fully recover might still suffer from post-polio syndrome after 30 to 40 years since contracting the disease.

In many developed countries, like the U.S., polio has become rare disease due to polio immunizations. However, in 3rd world and developing countries, thorough vaccination isn’t administered, keeping polio a recurring problem. Polio WHO reports that in Congo, 120 cases of acute flaccid paralysis and 58 deaths were listed early in November 2010, with the fist cases occurred first week of Oct of the same year. Global initiative to eradicate polio is focused in 4 polio-endemic countries, specifically in Northern India, Northern Nigeria, and the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.