Recently there has been a rise in many childhood diseases due to peoples’ refusal to vaccinate their children. Rises in the occurrence of measles, mumps, pertussis, and rubella have been seen in North America and across Europe and is becoming more common. The World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that measles cases have set a record high across Europe in 2018. During the first 6 months of 2018, “the total number for this period far exceeds the 12-month totals reported for every other year this decade.” These childhood illnesses are bad enough but one has to make one wonder about other diseases that had almost been wiped out in developed countries. Would these too make a reappearance and what would this look like?
Poliomyelitis (polio) is a highly infectious and sometimes fatal viral infection that invades the nervous and often leads to life-long paralysis. There has been a concerted effort to eradicate this horrible disease from the face of the planet since the development of a vaccine in the 1950s. The good news about polio is that about 80% of the world population is living in polio-free areas but as most people know, a world-wide epidemic is only a plane ride away and immunization is still needed to keep us safe. As long as a single person is infected with polio, there is a chance of anyone contracting it.
Polio mainly affects children under the age of 5 and is mainly spread through the fecal-oral route but has also been spread through water or food although this is less frequent. The initial symptoms are flu-like and include fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, stiffness of the neck, and muscle soreness. This virus can invade the central nervous system and 1 in 200 will suffer from irreversible paralysis, normally in the legs. This paralysis can also affect the diaphragm causing breathing difficulties leading to death in 5-10% of those paralyzed.
Polio has existed for thousands of years with major outbreaks beginning in the early 19th century in America and Europe with the first known outbreak in Canada in 1910. At that time, no one knew that infantile paralysis was so contagious and treatments and prevention were unknown. Public health departments attempted to quarantine the sick, close schools, and limit childrens’ movements but found that this did not prevent the spread of this disease. In Canada an estimated 11,000 were left paralyzed by polio between 1949 and 1954 with a peak in 1953 with some 9,000 infected and 500 deaths. This proved to be the most significant epidemic in this country since the Spanish Flu in 1918.
The spread of polio was brought under control with the introduction of the Salk vaccine introduced in 1955 and then the Sabin oral vaccine introduced in 1962. (My personal favourite vaccine. It was administered on a sugar cube and I remember it fondly as opposed to a needle.) These vaccines soon brought the disease to heel by the early 1970s and Canada was declared polio free in 1994.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the two countries where polio is still naturally spreading (although the numbers seem to be dropping) but there have been outbreaks in war-torn Syria where it has been difficult to vaccine those who need it. An area in northern Nigeria that had been declared polio free had an outbreak after rumours began to circulate that the vaccine was designed sterilize the children that received it. Subsequently the disease made a reappearance and spread to several other countries.
WHO has a global plan in place to eradicate polio like the eradication of small pox in 1980 but this is only possible with vaccination. Unfortunately, rumours and misinformation still exists in regards to all vaccines, not only polio. Historically, vaccinations have saved more people than have hurt them. The current rise in the occurrences of many childhood diseases can be seen as result of a number of parents opting to not immunize their children. Let us hope that we are not going back to a time when people lost their children in infancy or childhood because of these diseases.
–Janice Willson
References:
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/poliomyelitis
Photo source: CDC (iron lung used to assist polio sufferers in breathing)
