Let ’s end Polio

An Egyptian stele thought to represent a polio victim. 18th Dynasty (1403–1365 BC).   Poliomyelitis dates back to ancient times, as captured in this 14th century BC Egyptian carving, detailing a typical symptom of atrophy in one or more of the limbs.  The modern name is directly derived from Ancient Greek, poliós meaning ‘grey’ and myelós meaning ‘marrow’, the latter signifying the effect on the grey matter of the spinal cord. But while the ancient Egyptians and Greeks knew about the disease, it wasn’t clinically described until the late 18th century (AD), by the English doctor Michael Underwood. The disease was finally ‘formalized’ in the 19th century, thanks to the work of physicians Jakob Heine, who completed the first study on the disease, and Karl Oskar Medin, the first to detail the epidemic nature of Poliomyelitis. This led to the illness often being referred to as Heine-Medin disease. SYMPTOMS Polio is highly infectious and is spread through the fecal-oral exchange, mainly affecting children under the age of 5 but adult cases are not uncommon. Symptoms include fever, sore throat, headache, vomiting, and still neck. Although the disease is feared for its more extreme outcomes, such as paralysis, these develop in only 1-2% of all cases. Less than 10% of cases are fatal, with as most infections being asymptomatic. CAMPAIGN TO END POLIO It is unknown how many deaths Polio has caused through the ages, but a significant global campaign has been in pl...
Source: GIDEON blog - Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Tags: Epidemiology News Source Type: blogs