Polio: Is a Virus That Causes No Symptoms
As society continues to benefit from the advances of medical science, people sometimes tend to downplay or forget the devastation that previously uncontrolled diseases visited on the world. One of the most devastating diseases the United States encountered in modern history was Polio. For years people vaccinated their children against the disease without question, however recent decades has seen an increase in the number of parents opting out of vaccinations for their children. Polio in the US was eradicated because of vaccines, and it is important to maintain such protocol to prevent it from coming back into existence. Polio is a disease that is contagious and present with a range of symptoms, from none at all, all the way to lifelong paralysis of l
However, with widespread vaccination, wild-type polio, or polio occurring through natural infection, was eliminated from the United States by 1979 and the Western hemisphere by 1991(Polio http://www. (Death, 1999)Today, there are fewer than 6,000 cases worldwide, with fewer than 10 cases in the US(Polio http://www. org/parent/infections/bacterial_viral/polio. org/parent/infections/bacterial_viral/polio. "At the height of the polio epidemic in 1952, nearly 60,000 cases with more than 3,000 deaths were reported in the United States alone. Polio is contagious from person to person, if material contaminated with the virus is touched. Currently it is eradicated because of the vaccine which involves four doses of IPV (Inactive Polio vaccination) given between two months and six-years-old(Polio http://www. The fact that the disease has been eradicated in the US provides assurances to parents that their children will not be exposed to it in their daily living and education activities. Much like Shingles follows a chickenpox infection PPS causes pain, fatigue, muscle problems and other hard to define symptoms. It is important for parents to continue to be educated about the importance of Polio vaccinations so that it does not have a chance to come back in the same way that Tuberculosis has done.
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Polio Syndrome,
Inactive Polio,
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