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Poliomyelitis, or polio, is a virus that causes a serious disease. It is spread from person to person.
Most of the time, polio has no symptoms unless the polio virus gets into the blood. It is uncommon for the virus to enter the brain or spinal cord. If this does happen, it can cause muscles to become paralyzed. Some people get better from the paralysis. Others will be disabled. Depending on which muscles have been affected, these people may need a mobility aid or a wheelchair; they may have difficulty using their hands; or they may even have trouble breathing.
About 15 out of every 10000 adults who get polio die. (This means an adult has a 0.015% chance of dying from polio.)
Vaccination with polio vaccines could stop the disease all over the world. Organizations like the World Health Organization have trying to vaccinate as many people as possible against polio. Vaccination has eliminated polio from most countries in the world.
Worldwide, polio has become much less common in the past few decades. In 1988, there were about 350,000 cases of polio in the world. By 2007, the number of cases of polio in the world had decreased by over 99.9%, to just 1,652 cases.
The 32nd President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had polio. So far, he is the only President of the United States to have had this disease.
A TEM micrograph of poliovirus
A blockage of the lumbar anterior spinal cord artery due to polio (PV3)
Denervation of skeletal muscle tissue secondary to poliovirus infection can lead to paralysis.
The location of motor neurons in the anterior horn cells of the spinal column
A child receiving an oral polio vaccine
