TODAY is World Polio Day. With the re-emergence of polio in the Philippines, the observance of this day has become doubly important.
World Polio Day was established by Rotary International over a decade ago to commemorate the birth of Jonas Salk, who led the first team to develop a vaccine against poliomyelitis. Use of this inactivated poliovirus vaccine and subsequent widespread use of the oral poliovirus, developed by Albert Sabin, led to the establishment of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) in 1988. As of 2013, GPEI had reduced polio worldwide by 99 percent.
Polio is a paralyzing and potentially fatal disease that still threatens children in some parts of the world. The poliovirus invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis in hours. It can strike people of any age but mainly affects children under five.
The virus is transmitted by person-to-person spread mainly through the fecal-oral route or, less frequently, by a common vehicle (e.g. contaminated water or food) and multiplies in the intestine, from where it can invade the nervous system and can cause paralysis. Initial symptoms of polio include fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, stiffness in the neck, and pain in the limbs. In a small proportion of cases, the disease causes paralysis, which is often permanent.
But while polio is a crippling and potentially fatal infectious disease, it can be eradicated. True, there is no cure, but there are safe and effective vaccines. Polio can be prevented through immunization.
Polio vaccine, given multiple times, almost always protects a child for life. If enough people in a community are immunized, the virus will be deprived of susceptible hosts and will die out. High levels of vaccination coverage must be maintained to stop transmission and prevent outbreaks occurring.
The strategy, therefore, to eradicate polio is based on preventing infection by immunizing every child until transmission stops and the world is polio-free.
