The Concept of Polio and the Vaccine against it

It’s September 1951; you’re a 16-year-old high school sophomore coming home with your family from Labor Day weekend at your grandmother’s home in Sunbury, Pa. On your way home, you start to experience weird symptoms, and you can’t exactly tell what’s going on with your body. The symptoms include stiffness in your neck and your skin feeling chapped. Once you arrive at your house, you develop a fever before going to bed. The next morning your mother walks into your room to check on you, only to find you barely breathing and physically paralyzed.

They rush you to the hospital, and pain starts to rush throughout your body and is prominent in your spine. A spinal tap is done on you.

Meanwhile, you have convinced yourself that you have cancer. Everyone except you knows what is going on. They move you over to the polio wards of Oakland’s Municipal Hospital; only then is when you figure it out. You’re diagnosed with Poliomyelitis. What is Polio? Poliomyelitis, or Polio, is a disabling and life-threatening disease caused by the poliovirus (CDC 2019). It’s a virus that affects nervous symptoms and can paralyze the patient. That is exactly what happened to Bill Kirkpatrick in September 1951 when he came back from his Labor Day trip with his family.

When his mother found him unable to move in his bed, they rushed him to the hospital. Once there, doctors diagnosed him with polio and immediately did everything they could to treat him. He was absolutely terrified to find out he was paralyzed. He started treatment shortly after. He took his first step in February 1952, six months after polio had paralyzed him (Kirkpatrick 2002). The polio virus can affect everyone, but cases are more common in children under five years of age. It’s very common in countries that have lower sanitization, like Pakistan and Nigeria. The virus lives in the throat and intestines of the person infected. Paralysis, the lack of movement of the body, is just one of the many symptoms that come from the polio virus. Paralysis is by far the most dangerous symptom because it’s the leading cause of death. When paralyzed, the muscles that help you breathe are compromised and can stop working. There are other life-threatening symptoms like paresthesia, which is the feeling of pins and needles in your legs. Another indication is meningitis, which affects the spinal cord and brain; this occurs in one out of twenty-five people who get polio.

One out of four people has flu-like symptoms like sore throat, fever, nausea, and headaches. It is very common to have the virus but not have any symptoms at all. This is very dangerous because that is how it spreads quickly. The virus usually only last two to five days, but there are also many cases of people reporting symptoms after fifteen to forty years. This is called post-polio syndrome. Usually, the indications for this are new paralysis, weakness, or muscle pains after the initial contamination. The virus was first reported in 1894 in Vermont. They reported 132 cases, and the numbers only grew in the years to follow. A vaccine was found in 1952; there were two forms of the vaccine, injection and oral. In 1988, the World Health Assembly set a goal to get rid of the polio virus completely. In 2016, there were only 36 cases in the world; 20 in Pakistan, 12 in Afghanistan, 3 in Lao, and 1 in Nigeria. The cases that happened in Lao, Pakistan (only one), and Nigeria were considered vaccine-derived polio cases.

The number of cases has only gone down since 2016. Only a year later, cases were only in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria. Fortunately, cases of polio are down by 99.9%. The spread of the virus can happen in various ways. The virus mainly resides in the throat and intestines of the person infected. If someone touches the feces of someone who is infected, they themselves can contract the virus; feces can hold the virus for weeks. A very common way is through sneezing and coughing particles. You may contract polio by putting your mouth on objects that are contaminated. In places that have less sanitary conditions, like Pakistan, the virus can be in the water and food. You can become infected through the vaccine as well. This happens when you get the inactive virus, and it mutates within your body.

When this transpires, it’s called circulating vaccine-derived polio, cVDP. This form of obtaining the virus is very rare but has happened. There’s no cure, but there are vaccines and treatments that you can try. The course of treatment includes physical therapy, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and making sure to stay home and rest. It’s very hard to get treated because the virus affects your nervous system. The best thing to do is act before you even have to deal with the virus. Get vaccinated; 99% of children who get vaccinated are protected. In the United States, the vaccine is by injection in the arm or leg. All other countries do oral vaccines because it is cheaper for prevention.

If there is someone infected with polio, there will be a vaccine to prevent the contraction of the virus. Poliomyelitis is a paralytic disease that mainly affects kids under the age of five who live in unsanitary conditions. Although this was a global pandemic and people were in fear of getting ill, you don’t have to fear anymore. Cases are down by 99.9%, and there are vaccines that are very effective. Polio was once an illness that should have worried us, but now it seems we’ve come a long way from that.

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