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Poliomyelitis is a crippling and potentially fatal viral disease caused by the Polio virus that lives in the throat and intestinal tract. It is most often spread through person-to-person contact with the stool of an infected person and may also be spread through oral/nasal secretions 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. There is no cure for polio, it can only be prevented by immunisation. Polio used to be very common in the United States and caused severe illness in thousands of people each year before polio vaccine was introduced in 1955. Most people infected with the polio virus have no symptoms; however, for the less than 1% who develop paralysis it may result in permanent disability
Polio vaccine, given multiple times, almost always protects a child for life. The strategy to eradicate polio is therefore based on preventing infection by immunising every child until transmission stops and the world is polio-free.
There are two types of vaccines that protect against polio:
1.Inactivated Polio Vaccine (IPV)
It is used in the United States since 2000.Children should be vaccinated with four doses of inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) at the following ages:
For Children
Most people should get polio vaccine when they are children
1 st dose: 2 months
2nd dose: 4 months
3rd dose: 6-18 months
Booster dose: 4-6 years
For Adults
Most adults do not need polio vaccine because they were already vaccinated as children. But three groups of adults are at higher risk and should consider polio vaccination in the following situation
•If You are traveling to polio-endemic or high-risk areas of the world. Ask your health care provider for specific information on whether you need to be vaccinated.
Or if You are working in a laboratory and handling specimens that might contain polioviruses.
Or if You are a health care worker treating patients who could have polio or have close contact with a person who could be infected with poliovirus.
1st dose: Any time
2nd dose: 1 to 2 months after the first dose
3rd dose: 6 to 12 months after the second dose
Adults in these three groups who have had one or two doses of polio vaccine in the past should get the remaining one or two doses. It doesn’t matter how long it has been since the earlier dose(s).
Adults in these three groups who have never been vaccinated against polio should get three doses of IPV as per the following doses
2.Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV). OPV is taken by mouth and it is given all over the world out of USA
Both of these Polio vaccines may be given at the same time with other vaccines.
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%.
World Polio Day 24 th October 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 the poliomyelitis(Polio).Simultaneously it is an opportunity to recognise the work of committed WHO staff members and more than 20 000 other unsung heroes working to eradicate polio around the world.
In 1988 when WHO became part of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, polio paralysed 10 children for life every 15 minutes, in nearly every country in the world. Each case was entirely preventable. In 2017, so far, 12 cases of polio have been reported in just two countries. In the intervening years, the polio eradication infrastructure has been at the heart of efforts to increase equitable access to health services for every last child, even in the most remote or marginalized areas.
Today, only three endemic countries remain, which have never stopped polio – Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan. Even within these countries, the virus is cornered into fewer districts than ever before, with just 15 districts infected since last World Polio Day, compared to 29 between October 2015 and 2016.
Eradicating polio is hard and complicated. It requires committed, hardworking frontline healthcare workers to deliver doses of the oral polio vaccine to every single child, multiple times, so that they develop full immunity. As well it relies on community leaders, parents, medical personnel, traditional healers and surveillance officers to search for symptoms of polio – most often a floppy arm or leg – and to make sure that the child is tested for the poliovirus.
These two tactics – reaching every last child and finding every last virus – are the pillars to success of eradicating of Polio virus by giving the virus no place to hide. Once no children will be remain under-immunised which will cause death to the virus and the world will be free of polio.
WHO staffs play an important role in polio eradication from district to global levels. Surveillance Officers keep their eyes peeled for the virus in over 70 countries. One of these countries is Somalia, a polio-free country still alert to the threat of the virus. Poverty, internal displacement, conflict, and weak health systems mean that vaccination levels are low. If the virus were to return from an endemic country, immunity would not be high enough to stop another outbreak.
Thinking outside the box to overcome challenges, WHO Surveillance Officers in Somalia have trained a network of more than 500 parents, students, and community leaders to identify every case of acute flaccid paralysis so that if polio returns, it will be found – and stopped – immediately.
Success in polio eradication depends on the close and strong collaboration between all partners including national and local governments, public and private health providers, civil society, religious institutions, and most importantly community members themselves
To end polio, WHO works alongside Rotary International, UNICEF, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Through these efforts, more than 16 million people are walking today who would otherwise have been paralysed for life. More than 400 million children are vaccinated every year. In 2016, nearly 220 000 stool samples were tested for polio in WHO-accredited laboratory.
