Polio

What is Polio? The polio virus is usually spread from person to person through infected fecal
matter entering the mouth. It may also be spread by food or water containing human feces and
less commonly from infected saliva. Those who are infected may spread the disease for up to
six weeks even if no symptoms are presented.

Polio affects the spinal cord and nervous system causing muscle weakness and paralysis. This
can occur over a few hours or days. The weakness most often involves the legs , but may less
commonly involve the muscles of the head, neck and diaphragm. Polio can also attack your
respiratory system, in those cases people would usually be out in iron lungs to help them
breathe.

A virus called poliovirus causes polio. It enters the body through the mouth or nose, getting into
the digestive and respiratory systems. It multiplies in the throat and intestines.

The poliovirus is composed of a single-stranded, positive-sense RNA genome and a protein

capsid. The genome is a single stranded positive-sense RNA genome that is about 7500
nucleotides long. The viral particle is about 30 nanometers in diameter. Because of it’s short
genome and it’s simple composition-- only RNA and non enveloped icosahedral protein coat
that encapsulates it, the poliovirus is known to be the simplest significant virus.

Polio could strike people at any age but children under age 5 are most at risk. Polio used to be
called “infantile paralysis” or “the crippler”. The theory is that in the past, infants were exposed
to polio, mainly through contaminated water supplies, at a very young age. Infants’ immune
systems, aided by maternal antibodies still circulating in their blood, could quickly defeat
poliovirus and then develop lasting immunity to it. However, better sanitary conditions
meant that exposure to polio was delayed until later in life, on average, when a child had
lost maternal protection and was also more vulnerable to the most severe form of the
disease.

It is suggested that Polio has been around since 1580-1350 BC there is an Egyptian stele
portraying a priest with a withered leg suggesting that polio has existed for thousands of years.

The first known polio outbreaks appeared in Europe during the early 1800’s, and reached
epidemic proportions in the early 1900’s. But the first known outbreak in Canada occurred in
1910. A little girl was taken to Hamilton, Ontario hospital with what was thought to be rabies.
She sadly died, and it was later discovered to be polio. No one knew if the disease was
contagious or what could be done to prevent spread or treat it.

Provincial public health tried to quarantine the sick, closed schools and restricted children from
travelling or going to movie theatres. Over time it became clear that these rules were not
preventing spread.
In 1930, Canada’s first “Iron lung” was brought to “ The Hospital for Sick Children” in Toronto
from Boston. An “ Iron Lung “ were these huge metal cylinders invented to regulate the
breathing of people whose polio attacked their respiratory muscles. Some women even gave
birth while confined in an “ iron lung “

There are two types of polio treatments; an inactivated poliovirus given by injection and a
weakened poliovirus given by mouth. The treatment was made by weakening the three strains
of poliovirus that caused disease by growing them in monkey kidney cells. Poliovirus that was
grown in these cells was so "weakened" that, after it was swallowed or injected, it induced an
immune response but didn't cause disease.

Thanks to the treatments of the three serotypes of wild poliovirus, type 2 was certified as
eradicated in 2015 and type three was certified as eradicated in 2018. The poliovirus cases
have declined by more than 99.9% worldwide.

I chose to do this pathogen project on polio, because my great uncle Gavin had a small case of
Polio. He was diagnosed with it at the age of two. It only affected his legs making one shorter
than the other. He walks with a bit of a limp but it is really not that noticeable.

Every Last Child. (n.d.). History of polio. Retrieved from

https://polioeradication.org/polio-today/history-of-polio/

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2019, March 7). CDC global health - Polio

- Our progress. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/polio/progress/index.htm