How is poliomyelitis diagnosed?
Along with a complete physical exam and a medical history, doctors will take cultures of the throat and stool, and sometimes blood and cerebrospinal fluid levels in search of poliovirus.
How does polio spread?
The virus is often spread by contact with infected feces. This is often due to poor hygiene, especially hand washing. It can also happen by eating or drinking contaminated food or water.
It can also spread when an infected person coughs or sneezes infected drops into the air.
People with the virus can excrete the virus in their feces for several weeks. People are more contagious just before symptoms begin and shortly after they appear.
Who has had polio?
It is estimated that there are around 120,000 people living in the UK who survived polio when they were younger.
Famous people who had polio include Mary Berry, the chef, Neil Young, the musician, Jone Mitchell, the singer, and Donald Sutherland, the actor, Francis Ford Coppola, the director, and David Stakey, the historian.
What is the treatment and can you recover from polio?
There is no specific cure for people who become infected. Treatment focuses on relieving symptoms by prescribing pain relief, such as acetaminophen or ibuprofen.
Patients are often advised to go on a special diet, do minimal activity, and use hot compresses or warm-up pads for muscle pain.
Severe symptoms of paralysis may require movement assistance devices, such as braces, canes, and wheelchairs. Patients may also need breathing help, such as extra oxygen or a ventilator and physical or occupational therapy.
Some people who have recovered from a mild attack develop postpoliomyelitis syndrome, which can cause persistent fatigue, muscle weakness, muscle contraction, and muscle and joint pain.
Where did polio originate?
Carved plaques from ancient Egypt around 1500 BC show a priest with a dry leg using a cane, suggesting that polio has been circulating for thousands of years, but that it was first described in the medical literature by the British physician Michael Underwood in 1789.
The virus was never considered a major problem until the late 1800s when outbreaks began to occur in industrialized areas. The first significant outbreak occurred among children in Vermont in the United States in 1894.
In the 1940s and 50s, Europe and North America were looking for major outbreaks during the summer, and parents were advised to keep children away from public places such as amusement parks, swimming pools and beaches.
Severe outbreaks were thought to be caused by improved hygiene that prevented young children from being exposed, leaving them at greater risk later in childhood.
When did the UK start vaccinating people against polio?
Major outbreaks in the 1940s and 1950s led to the acceleration of vaccination programs, and by 1955, Dr. Jonas Salk had created the first polio vaccine.
Britain took it up immediately and in 1961 the UK switched to an oral vaccine that was often dropped on the tongue or placed on a sugar cube.