Polio

Polio is a virus that can cause severe nerve damage which can lead to paralysis. Even though there have been man measures to eradicate this virus, today, there are still children and adult who are still affected by polio. The polio virus is usually spread by feces of an affected person. For countries that have poor sanitation and sewage systems. polio is easily spread through contaminated water, food, and direct contact. Children are more susceptible than adults, and that is why the polio vaccine is given to them during early childhood. Polio is prevented by two types of vaccines.

The polio virus has two vaccines called the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) and the oral polio vaccine (OPV). The IPV was the first to become available in 1955 and was administered as a shot. The OPV was developed in 1961 acting as a more convenient form because it was administered by drops into the mouth. In the United States, the OPV was recommended until 2000 when only IPV was used. These vaccines resulted in polio being eradicated around 1979. So polio be destroyed and never to be seen again, right? Wrong!

In countries with excellent sanitation and sewage practices, polio should rarely, if at all, be seen due to the vaccines available. I think that everyone should get vaccinated, especially children. There are some people who do not believe this to be true, so they hold the biggest threat for reemergence of eradicated diseases like polio. For countries that have very poor sanitation and sewage practices, they still have occurrences of polio. There was a meeting on December 11, 2020 among the Emergency Committee under the International Health Regulations concerned with the significant increase in the wild poliovirus cases globally when the amount went from 28 to 113. They are seeing this increase in countries in Africa and Afghanistan. The committee concluded that this was indeed a problem due to the international spread and needed to be handled with coordinated international response. In my opinion, less coordination through talking, and more coordination through action.