Poliomyelitis

FROM COREL GALLERY

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FACTS:

• Poliomyelitis, known as Polio, is an acute viral infection.
• Polio is cause by any one of three polioviruses.
• It affects mainly young people, but older people can also get it.
• Polio is spread by coming in contact with contaminated saliva, or other bodily fluids.
• Symptoms are fever, headache, stiff neck and back, muscle weakness, and difficulty swallowing.
• The virus gets into your body through your mouth.Polio starts as a minor illness.
• The key symptom of Polio is paralysis without losing the sensation.
• 90% of the cases, mostly in children, recover within a few weeks. Polio strikes adults more severely.

Poliomyelitis, known more commonly as Polio, strikes mostly children, but can also attack adults. Polio is the result of a viral infection. The virus enters your body through the mouth, invades through the throat and digestive system, and eventually sprea ds throughout your immune system though your bloodstream. Polio is a contagious virus. You can catch it coming in contact with infected saliva or other bodily fluids.

Polio starts as a minor illness, similar to the flu. The symptoms are fever and headache, stiff neck and back, muscle weakness, and having difficulty swallowing. It becomes the paralytic type of Polio when the virus goes from your bloodstream and into the central nervous system, and affects the nerve cells of your brainstem or spinal cord.

Paralytic Polio is usually proceeded by a fever and illness. The major sign is paralysis of one of more limbs without the loss of sensation.

Polio was once a very serious disease. Many children were placed in Iron Lungs to help them breathe. But now with technology improving, 90% of the cases, (the majority of them being in children) can make a full recovery within a few weeks. But Acute Para lytic Polio is much more serious, and strikes adults more severely.

Without proper medical treatment, Poliomyelitis can be fatal. About 2-5% of all children with paralytic forms of Polio die, and about 15% of all adults.

Other complications with Polio include high blood pressure, shock, fluid in the lungs, and urinary tract infections.

There are ways to prevent getting Poliomyelitis. There is a vaccine called the Salk Vaccine that is given in a series of muscular injections. There is also a vaccine, called the Salk vaccine, which can be taken orally.

JONAS SALK, WHO DISCOVERED THE POLIO VACCINE
FROM YOUR BODY'S DEFENSES

The incidence of Poliomyelitis is low in the United States, because so many people have been vaccinated.

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