The virus therefore spreads especially well in conditions of poor sanitation, for example when people defecate in the open or do not filter their water before drinking it. In other words, polio is mostly transmitted by drinking water that has been contaminated by the feces of a person carrying the poliovirus. The poliovirus is found only among humans and is transmitted via the so-called fecal-oral route. About a quarter of cases (24%) result in “abortive” poliomyelitis which leads to nonspecific symptoms for a few days, such as a fever or a cold, and 1-5% of cases lead to “non-paralytic aseptic meningitis”, in which the patient suffers from stiff limbs for up to 10 days. The majority of infections (72%) do not lead to any symptoms. Most infections do not lead to any symptoms, but others suffer terribly and for some it leads to death. Between 1 in 50 and 1 in 500 infections result in paralysis, among people who have not been vaccinated. The symptoms vary widely between patients. Paralyzed limbs such as arms or legs waste away over time which is the cause of deformed child legs most commonly being associated with the disease polio. The name poliomyelitis is derived from Greek and translates to gray (polios) marrow (myelon), which refers to the tissue in the center of the spinal cord, which when affected causes paralysis. One of the severe symptoms of polio is paralysis and the disease is therefore also known as “infantile paralysis”. Polio, short for poliomyelitis, is an infectious disease that is caused and transmitted by a virus called the poliovirus. The latest data on the number of polio cases is always up-to-date here.Īs of 2021 the virus has been found to circulate in only two countries in the world – Afghanistan and Pakistan – and it is hoped that the disease will soon be eradicated globally. Since then the world has made rapid progress against the disease and until 2016 the number of paralytic cases was reduced by 99.99% with 42 cases in that year worldwide. In the early 1980s, there were an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 cases worldwide per year 1 and the disease was still prevalent in 125 countries.Īs a response the “Global Polio Eradication Initiative” (GPEI) was founded in 1988 to fight the virus’s spread and disease burden with a global vaccination campaign. But large outbreaks continued around the world. This allowed some richer countries to eliminate the disease entirely in the 1960s and 70s. No cure exists for the symptoms, but in the 1950s effective vaccines were developed and have been used around the world since then. Polio is an infectious disease, contracted predominantly by children, that can lead to the permanent paralysis of various body parts and can ultimately cause death by immobilizing the patient’s breathing muscles.
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