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No cure

treatment for managing symptoms only

physical and/or occupational therapy for paralysis

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"Jonas E. Salk was an American doctor and medical researcher who developed the first successful polio vaccines"

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Jonas Salk, in full Jonas Edward Salk, (born October 28, 1914, New York, New York, U.S.-died June 23, 1995, La Jolla, California), American physician and medical researcher who developed the first safe and effective vaccine for polio.

Salk received an M.D. in 1939 from New York University College of Medicine, where he worked with Thomas Francis, Jr., who was conducting killed-virus immunology studies. Salk joined Francis in 1942 at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and became part of a group that was working to develop an immunization against influenza.

In 1947 Salk became associate professor of bacteriology and head of the Virus Research Laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. At Pittsburgh he began research on polio, an acute viral infectious disease of the nervous system that usually begins with general symptoms such as fever and headache and is sometimes followed by a more serious and permanent paralysis of muscles in one or more limbs, the throat, or the chest. In the mid-20th century hundreds of thousands of children were struck by the disease every year. Working with scientists from other universities in a program to classify the various strains of poliovirus, Salk corroborated other studies in identifying three separate strains. He then demonstrated that killed virus of each of the three, although incapable of producing the disease, could induce antibody formation in monkeys.

In 1952 he conducted field tests of his killed-virus vaccine, first on children who had recovered from polio and then on subjects who had not had the disease; both tests were successful in that the children's antibody levels rose significantly and no subjects contracted polio from the vaccine. His findings were published the following year. In 1954 Francis conducted a mass field trial, and the vaccine, injected by needle, was found to safely reduce the incidence of polio. On April 12, 1955, the vaccine was released for use in the United States. In the following years the incidence of polio in the United States fell from 18 cases per 100,000 people to less than 2 per 100,000. In the 1960s a second type of polio vaccine, known as oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) or Sabin vaccine-named for its inventor, American physician and microbiologist Albert Sabin-was developed. OPV contains live attenuated (weakened) virus and is given orally.

Salk served successively as professor of bacteriology, preventive medicine, and experimental medicine at Pittsburgh, and in 1963 he became fellow and director of the Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, California, later called the Salk Institute. Among his many honours was the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded in 1977.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Kara Rogers.

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Jonas Salk | Biography, Facts, & Polio Vaccine

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Jonas Salk, in full Jonas Edward Salk, (born October 28, 1914, New York, New York, U.S.-died June 23, 1995, La Jolla, California), American physician and medical researcher who developed the first safe and effective vaccine for polio. Salk received an M.D.

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Infographic: Understanding Polio How We're Eradicating Polio

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Polio has gone from 350,000 cases in 1998 to just 1,500 cases in 2010--a 99 percent reduction.

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Threat

Still an epidemic in Pakistan and Afghanistan

over 20 countries have reported cVDPV outbreaks

Success

Completely eradicated in the USA thanks to vaccination

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Physician will go through patient histories like travel and immunization

Samples of stool, blood, and spinal fluid are collected and tested for the presence of the virus

MRI to look at the spinal cord

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Hygiene - washing hands often with soap and water

alcohol hand sanitizers are ineffective against poliovirus

Vaccines - introduce the body to the virus and prepare it to fight off the infection

Inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV). Used in the U.S since 2000

Oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV)

(CDC on polio)

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Symptoms:

Flu-like symptoms (fever, sore throat, nausea, etc..)

Complications

meningitis- an infection that affects the spinal cord and or brain

paralysis- inability to move parts of the body or weakness in limbs

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Poliovirus, an enterovirus in the picornaviridae group.

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Polio is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus that affects a person's nervous system. It is extremely contagious and spreads through contact with an infected person.

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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

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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).

Symptoms

Most people who get infected with poliovirus will not have any visible symptoms.

About 1 out of 4 people (or 25 out of 100) with poliovirus infection will have flu-like symptoms that can include:

Sore throat

Fever

Tiredness

Nausea

Headache

Stomach pain

These symptoms usually last 2 to 5 days, then go away on their own.

A smaller proportion of people with poliovirus infection will develop other, more serious symptoms that affect the brain and spinal cord:

Meningitis (infection of the covering of the spinal cord and/or brain)occurs in about 1-5 out of 100 people with poliovirus infection, depending on virus type

Paralysis (can't move parts of the body) or weakness in the arms, legs, or both occurs in about 1 out of 200 people to 1 in 2000 people, depending on virus type

Paralysis is the most severe symptom associated with poliovirus 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.

Even children who seem to fully recover can develop new muscle pain, weakness, or paralysis as adults, 15 to 40 years later. This is called post-polio syndrome.

Note that "poliomyelitis" (or "polio" for short) is defined as the paralytic disease. So only people with the paralytic infection are considered to have the disease.

Polio has been around since ancient times. This ancient Egyptian tomb painting shows a man with a withered leg unable to bear weight without use of a walking stick. This means that most muscle fibers are replaced with scarring (muscle-wasting) that is permanent.

If someone had polio as a child or young adult but had kept or recovered some or all movement of weakened arms or legs, even to the point of being athletic afterward, they can become weaker in late adulthood. That is post-polio syndrome (PPS), a condition that can affect polio survivors decades after they recover from their initial poliovirus infection. Some PPS patients become wheelchair-bound when they had not been before.

Transmission

Poliovirus is very contagious and spreads through person-to-person contact.

It lives in an infected person's throat and intestines.

It can contaminate food and water in unsanitary conditions.

Poliovirus only infects people. It enters the body through the mouth. It spreads through:

Contact with the feces (poop) of an infected person

Droplets from a sneeze or cough of an infected person (less common)

You can get infected with poliovirus if:

You have picked up minute pieces of feces on your hands, and you touch your mouth.

You put in your mouth objects like toys that are contaminated with feces.

An infected person can spread the virus to others immediately before and up to 2 weeks after symptoms appear.

The virus can live in an infected person's intestines for many weeks. It can contaminate food and water in unsanitary conditions.

People who don't have symptoms can still pass the virus to others and make them sick.

Prevention

There are two types of vaccine that can prevent polio:

Inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) given as an injection in the leg or arm, depending on the patient's age. Only IPV has been used in the United States since 2000.

Oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) is still used throughout much of the world.

Polio vaccine protects children by preparing their bodies to fight the poliovirus. Almost all children (more than 99 percent) who get all the recommended doses of the inactivated polio vaccine will be protected from polio.

It is also very important to practice good hand hygiene and wash hands often with soap and water. Note that alcohol-based hand sanitizers do not kill poliovirus.

Diagnosis

Healthcare providers who suspect a patient has polio should hospitalize the patient right away, do a physical exam, take detailed medical history, including vaccination history and history of any recent travel, collect samples (stool, throat swab, blood, urine, and spinal fluid), and obtain a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to look at pictures of the spinal cord. Poliovirus is most likely to be detected in stool specimens.

Treatment

There is no cure for paralytic polio and no specific treatment.

Physical or occupational therapy can help with arm or leg weakness caused by polio and might improve long-term outcomes, especially if implemented early in the course of illness. Healthcare providers should consider consulting neurology and infectious disease experts to discuss possible treatments and recommend certain interventions on a case-by-case basis.

If you think you or someone in your family has symptoms of polio, please call your healthcare provider right away or go to an emergency room.

Diagnosis, Specimens, & Containment

CDC laboratories conduct testing for poliovirus including culture, PCR, genome sequencing, and serology.

CDC guidance on maintaining the integrity of specimens for collection, storage, and shipment.

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Polio is an infectious disease caused by a virus that can spread from person to person and cause paralysis. CDC is committed to polio eradication and protecting every child from vaccine-preventable diseases.