What is the key symptom of polio?

Paralysis is the most severe symptom associated with polio, because it can lead to permanent disability and death. Between 2 and 10 out of 100 people who have paralysis from poliovirus infection die, because the virus affects the muscles that help them breathe.

How do you confirm polio?

Doctors often recognize polio by symptoms, such as neck and back stiffness, abnormal reflexes, and difficulty swallowing and breathing. To confirm the diagnosis, a sample of throat secretions, stool or a colorless fluid that surrounds your brain and spinal cord (cerebrospinal fluid) is checked for poliovirus.

What are the symptoms of polio Class 9?

What is polio called now?

According to the World Health Organization, only 22 cases of polio were reported worldwide in 2017. However, recent reports of children exhibiting a polio-like paralytic condition has sent health officials and researchers scrambling for answers. The condition is called acute flaccid myelitis, or AFM.

What means polio?

Polio, or poliomyelitis, is a disabling and life-threatening disease caused by the poliovirus. The virus spreads from person to person and can infect a person's spinal cord, causing paralysis (can't move parts of the body).

Who is at risk for polio?

Polio (poliomyelitis) mainly affects children under 5 years of age. 1 in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis. Among those paralysed, 5% to 10% die when their breathing muscles become immobilized.

Can polio be treated with antibiotics?

There are no special medicines or antibiotics that can be used to treat a person; the only treatment is supportive care. Does past infection make a person immune? Yes. Once someone has been infected with the poliovirus, he or she is immune, but only to the specific type of polio virus he or she had.

Is there a test to see if you had polio?

There's no specific test to diagnose post-polio syndrome. Diagnosis is based on a medical history and physical exam, and exclusion of other conditions that could cause the signs and symptoms.

What polio does to legs?

While most people fully recover from polio, the disease can cause very serious problems. These problems can sometimes develop quickly (hours after infection) and include: Numbness, a feeling of pins and needles or tingling in the legs or arms. Paralysis in the legs, arms or torso.

Why does polio affect the legs?

Related to this is the possible shortening of the limb. In a growing child, bone grows as a result of the muscle pull on it and/or weight bearing. Therefore, many who contracted polio as a growing child may have one arm or leg or foot that is shorter and smaller than the non-affected/less affected limb.

Can polio be cured?

No, there is no cure for polio. Polio vaccine is the only protection against polio. Safe and effective vaccines exist – the oral polio vaccine (OPV) and the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV). OPV is administered orally and can be given by volunteers.

Where is polio most common?

Five of the six regions of the world are certified polio-free—the African Region, the Americas, Europe, South East Asia and the Western Pacific. Only two polio-endemic countries (nations that have never interrupted the transmission of wild poliovirus) remain—Afghanistan and Pakistan.

How can you prevent polio?

Polio can be prevented by immunizing a child with approrpiate vaccination. There are currently two effective polio vaccines, the inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) and the live attenuated oral polio vaccine (OPV).

Where did polio originally come from?

The first epidemics appeared in the form of outbreaks of at least 14 cases near Oslo, Norway, in 1868 and of 13 cases in northern Sweden in 1881. About the same time, the idea began to be suggested that the hitherto sporadic cases of infantile paralysis might be contagious.

What are the three types of polio?

There are three wild types of poliovirus (WPV) – type 1, type 2, and type 3. People need to be protected against all three types of the virus in order to prevent polio disease and the polio vaccination is the best protection.

Where does polio affect the body?

Polio is a viral disease which may affect the spinal cord causing muscle weakness and paralysis. The polio virus enters the body through the mouth, usually from hands contaminated with the stool of an infected person. Polio is more common in infants and young children and occurs under conditions of poor hygiene.

What gender is most affected by polio?

Sex is a risk factor for polio, with a slight predominance found in males, who are more at risk for developing paralytic polio (8) (9). Adult females are also at risk if they are pregnant (10) (11). Other risk factors for polio, immune deficiency and malnu- trition, are influenced by gender.

How long does it take for polio symptoms to appear?

Polio symptoms generally appear between 3 and 21 days after infection. However, many people infected with poliovirus have no symptoms and may not even know they are affected. In mild polio cases, symptoms include: fever.

How did people catch polio?

Poliovirus can be transmitted through direct contact with someone infected with the virus or, less commonly, through contaminated food and water. People carrying the poliovirus can spread the virus for weeks in their feces. People who have the virus but don't have symptoms can pass the virus to others.

Can you get polio if vaccinated?

People with certain immune problems can catch the disease from a child who has recently been vaccinated with oral polio vaccine.

Does polio still exist today?

The annual number of wild poliovirus cases has declined by more than 99.9% worldwide from an estimated 350,000 in 1988 when the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was launched. Of the three serotypes of wild poliovirus, type 2 was certified as eradicated in 2015 and type 3 was certified as eradicated in 2019.

Which countries still have polio 2021?

Polio is still endemic in three countries, i.e., Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan and is eradicated from the rest of the world. Pakistan is considered as the exporter of Wild Polio Virus (WPV) with highest number of polio outbreaks among endemic countries.

How do vaccines get rid of polio?

IPV is given by intramuscular injection and must be administered by a trained health worker. IPV produces antibodies in the blood to all three types of poliovirus. In the event of infection, these antibodies prevent the spread of the virus to the central nervous system and protect against paralysis.

How long does polio last for?

How Long Does Polio Last? People who have milder polio symptoms usually make a full recovery within 1–2 weeks. People whose symptoms are more severe can be weak or paralyzed for life, and some may die. After recovery, a few people might develop "post-polio syndrome" as long as 30–40 years after their initial illness.

Can polio come back?

The theory that the polio virus may lie dormant in your body, causing post-polio syndrome when it becomes reactivated at a later stage, has been disproven. It's not clear why only some people who've had polio develop post-polio syndrome.