Re: Taliban to ban polio vaccinations for children until U...

[Guest guest]

I did a little looking into polio a few days ago.

According to what I read, polio is likely an ancient disease going back at least to the ancient Greeks. It wasn't terribly common probably for a couple of reasons. The first is that there was so much illness back then that people died from other things before polio could severely affect them in any numbers.

The second reason is that in 95% of cases, polio would seem to be little more than the cold or flu. Most people who got it wouldn't even notice. However, 5% of cases are what people think of when they hear polio. Some people only had partial paralysis and might even recover to a degree. That seemed to be cases where it affect the spine or the nerves radiating from it. A smaller percentage of cases there was near total paralysis to a degree or another, usually because of brain infection.

Still a nasty disease though and not one we'd want to see make a comeback, particularly since it has been controlled for so long few people would have a resistance to it.

Polio is a really nasty disease, a classmate in University had polio as a child and was partially paralized. Now, some folks who had polio years ago are sufferng from delayed complications.rl

[Guest guest]

:Interesting info!

Elaine

'My cat Rusty is a servant of the Living God....'

adapted from a poem by Smart

Subject: Re: Taliban to ban polio vaccinations for children until U...To: FAMSecretSociety Received: Thursday, June 21, 2012, 9:30 AM

I did a little looking into polio a few days ago.

According to what I read, polio is likely an ancient disease going back at least to the ancient Greeks. It wasn't terribly common probably for a couple of reasons. The first is that there was so much illness back then that people died from other things before polio could severely affect them in any numbers.

The second reason is that in 95% of cases, polio would seem to be little more than the cold or flu. Most people who got it wouldn't even notice. However, 5% of cases are what people think of when they hear polio. Some people only had partial paralysis and might even recover to a degree. That seemed to be cases where it affect the spine or the nerves radiating from it. A smaller percentage of cases there was near total paralysis to a degree or another, usually because of brain infection.

Still a nasty disease though and not one we'd want to see make a comeback, particularly since it has been controlled for so long few people would have a resistance to it.