Anterior Poliomyelitis is a highly infectious disease that attacks the anterior horn of the spinal cord. Poliomyelitis translates to grey spinal matter inflammation. Polio is caused by a picorna virus that enters the body through mucus membranes and then multiplies in the throat and being an acidophile, can survive well in the stomach and small intestine. When viremia occurs and persists, the virus will penetrate the capillary wall. Once this happens, it enters the central nervous system and begins attacking motor neurons. Polio is tissue specific and will only multiply and attack neurons. “this strict neuronotropism and definite tissue specificity of poliomyelitis virus is reflected not only in its limited adult host range but aso in its inability to multiply in the undifferentiated embryonic chick or mouse tissues in which so many other viruses have been cultivated.” (Sabin) Picornaviridae have no envelope and are are an exceptionally small, single stranded, positive sense RNA. Its replication takes place in the cytoplasm and it is also distinguished by its internal ribosomal entry site.
While polio is also referred to as infantile paralysis, it does not only affect children. It does not discriminate and the older one is when they contract it, the more likely paralysis becomes. Polio is spread person to person, mainly through the fecal to oral route. This particular route can occur when drinking water comes into contact with fecal matter and is not properly treated, improper or a lack of hand washing after coming into contact with feces, preparing food after such, or in the presence of fecal matter, or even disease vectors like the common house fly.
While 90% of the infected are actually asymptomatic, the other 10% have much to...
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...titute and continue to quarantine people. People were very against the quarantine. If one could not set up a sterile environment in the home, they were forced to go to the hospital. In this time, people were afraid of the hospital, as it was not clean and many died from secondary infections when they went in. Many hid their sick loved ones which only led to more infections. Houses were marked with placards (figure 5) warning people of the infected and guards were stationed at rail stations to stop the sick from traveling.
Due to the high rate of infection and the lack of knowledge about the disease, all researchers could do was use observational epidemiology and inform the public of where the outbreaks were occurring and how many people were infected while they continued to search for a cure. A cure in the shape of a vaccine that wouldn’t come for another 40 years.
...influenza pandemic in one way or another; the use of quarantines were extremely prevalent among them. Also, the pandemic is directly responsible for the creation of many health organizations across the globe. The organizations help track and research illnesses across the globe. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) for example, strive to prevent epidemics and pandemics. They also provide a governing body with directives to follow in case an outbreak does occur, and if one shall occur the efforts of organizations across the globe will be crucial for its containment. It is amazing that with modern medicine and proper organization that influenza still manages to make its appearance across the globe annually.
A law was made, saying that once someone was ill with the plague they were to stay in their house. Anyone who happened to live in the same house as the unfortunate soul was also locked in, with fear that they could spread the disease. Beggars were not allowed to wonder the streets at anytime, and were executed immediately for doing so without a given reason. All of these, although sensible ideas (apart from the execution..) would not contribute towards public health, as the disease was not contagious in the human community. It was in fact passed on from fleas living on black rats, but this knowledge had not yet been developed.
Poliomyelitis was the term used by doctors to describe the condition in which the gray (polios) anterior matter of the spinal chord (myelos) was inflamed (-itis). Until a cure was discovered, no one had the slightest idea where "polio" had come from or why it paralyzed so many children. People learned later that, oddly enough, it was the improved sanitary conditions which caused children to be attacked by the virus. Since people were no longer in contact with open sewers and other unsanitary conditions which had exposed them to small amounts of the polio virus as infants, when paralysis is rare, the dis...
In the United States there was a vicious enemy everyone feared. In the 1950s the United States was under attack by the ruthless Poliomyelitis virus. Americans lived in constant fear of their children contracting this horrible virus that left many children paralyzed. During the outbreaks in the 1950s foundations were created to fund research and create awareness to help find a way to eradicate the virus. Americans become focused on doing anything in their power to fight this virus off. Jonas Salk’s Exploration of Medicine and research led to the creation of the Polio vaccine that united the country, prevented further outbreaks, and introduced a new form of treatment which has limited the fatality of polio infections today.
Verbally expressing the word “POLIO” brings forth anxiety, trepidation, and thoughts of mortality, crippled bodies, and iron lungs. Once the first shock wears off that you-- in fact, have the disease than the fight for your life begins. This highly contagious illness was unknowingly transmitted by close contact and in fecal matter. Unfortunately, many poor and middle class families' contracted this viral disease, which rapidly destroyed motor-neurons to arms, legs, and diaphragm muscles. Ironically, improved twentieth- century sanitation practices like enclosed sewers and indoor plumbing were cited for this delayed childhood disease. Younger breastfeeding toddlers received maternal antibodies that protected them from the virus. However, older children did not have this immune advantage, they suffered more debilitative disabilities. Sadly, children under fifteen years old, experienced the highest rates of contracting infantile pa...
Researchers were unable to identify what caused Polio to spread. It seemed to be more common in cleaner environments, unlike other diseases. Polio was found more often in the middle class rather than the poor. One reason that the polio virus was so difficult to discover, was because it wasn’t a bacteria and because most microscopes couldn’t detect the microbial agent. Another problem that created difficulties for scientists, was that the researchers couldn’t discover how the virus got
There is no vaccine to protect against it and, in the most severe cases, no cure. The population of Phoenix has grown by ten per cent in the past deca...
The virus is primarily spherical shaped and roughly 200nm in size, surrounded by a host-cell derived membrane. Its genome is minus-sense single-stranded RNA 16-18 kb in length. It contains matrix protein inside the envelope, hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, fusion protein, nucleocapsid protein, and L and P proteins to form the RNA polymerase. The host-cell receptors on the outside are hemagglutinin and neuraminidase. The virus is allowed to enter the cell when the hemagglutinin/ neuraminidase glycoproteins fuse with the sialic acid on the surface of the host cell, and the capsid enters the cytoplasm. The infected cells express the fusion protein from the virus, and this links the host cells together to create syncitia.
Symptoms of this plague are fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, and stiffness in the neck and pain in the limbs. But even though the polio virus does have symptoms about 90% of people do not experience any symptoms at all, which makes them very susceptible to unknowingly spreading the disease to love ones or strangers playing in his poop. Of those infected with polio only .05% of people come out with any major paralysis. And of the people that have been paralyzed only 5% to 10% will died from the respiratory system being paralyzed. Polio is transmitted from person to person through direct contact to the virus, and because the vast majority of people affected by polio are in developing countries, people don’t wash their hands after handling the disease which provides it another way of transmitting it. And because the disease lives in the intestine for the majority of its life, the only way to directly contact the virus is through stool samples. Doctors can tell that the disease affecting a person is polio through the symptoms and a stool sample. (Who, 2014).
cannons in the street and they thought that would clean the disease out of the air. Some doctors thought it would be smart to bleed out the victims and they would make them throw up multiple times. Some cities wouldn’t let the diseased into the there cities.The sick would just sometimes be thrown out on the street
There were ways doctors desperately tried to treat the victims of yellow fever in Philadelphia in the similar way. For one, they were no ordinary doctors both the best doctors in the city and other places around the world. The best doctors wanted to figure out a cure as fast as a rabbit. Notwithstanding these doctors could be getting sick nevertheless the doctors cared a great deal about the patients they cared for and tried to cure each one. They could've just deserted like many wealthy
The discovery of the polio vaccine was an important medical and scientific breakthrough because it saved many lives since the 1950s. In the summer of 1916 the great polio epidemic struck the United states. By the 1950s hundreds of thousands of people had been struck by the poliomyelitis. The highest number of cases occurred in 1953 with over 50,000 people infected with the virus.
The Government and Politicians didn’t really care. Most of them ignore it and waited for the last minute. Others, like the President Ronald Regan spent more money on war supplies and other stuff, than helping the CDC find a cure. They were only given a certain limited space, no money, and outdated equipment.
In the 1960s, doctors in the United States predicted that infectious diseases were in decline. US surgeon Dr. William H. Stewart told the nation that it had already seen most of the frontiers in the field of contagious disease. Epidemiology seemed destined to become a scientific backwater (Karlen 1995, 3). Although people thought that this particular field was gradually dying, it wasn’t. A lot more of it was destined to come. By the late 1980s, it became clear that people’s initial belief of infectious diseases declining needed to be qualified, as a host of new diseases emerged to infect human beings (Smallman & Brown, 2011).With the current trends, the epidemics and pandemics we have faced have created a very chaotic and unreliable future for mankind. As of today, it has really been difficult to prevent global epidemics and pandemics. Although the cases may be different from one state to another, the challenges we all face are all interconnected in this globalized world.
Throughout human history disease has been linked to many facets of life and even the rise and fall of entire civilizations. Biological, social, political and economic forces have all influenced how the outbreak of disease is handled. Epidemics have altered history in how they have developed and the impact that they have had. In turn, epidemic management has been influenced by history and governments as humans have learned to cope with outbreaks and the social and political implications that result from them. Today, biomedical engineers, politicians, historians and social scientists are leading the battle in an attempt to understand and combat infectious diseases. This report will explore epidemic management and its historical relationship with the international political system. Issues will be investigated that range from the societal effects of epidemics, to observing today’s public policy debates regarding outbreaks to the possible reduction or even dissolution of conflict in exchange for food and medical technology between nations. Research has made it abundantly clear that humans must be vigilant in combating epidemics. By drawing on multiple disciplines, it is possible to implement a sound disease management plan that will control and reduce the spreading and mortality of infectious agents across the globe, as well as reduce tension and conflict between the developed and developing worlds.