There is no cure for polio, it can only be prevented. Polio vaccine, given multiple times, can protect a child for life.

Vaccines work by stimulating the body’s defense mechanisms or immune system to produce antibodies to a particular microorganism such as a virus, bacteria, or other infectious organism. The animal’s immune system is then prepared to react to a future infection with that microorganism.

How does a vaccine work? The immune system recognizes the vaccine as a foreign substance and makes an immune response to it. The vaccine serves as an antigen in that it causes the immune system to respond to it. One part of the immune system creates antibodies; humoral immune response.

The viral particle is about 30 nm in diameter with icosahedral symmetry. Because of its short genome and its simple composition—only RNA and a nonenveloped icosahedral protein coat that encapsulates it, poliovirus is widely regarded as the simplest significant virus.

What causes poliomyelitis? The poliovirus spreads most often from fecal-oral contact. Usually, this occurs from poor hand washing or from consuming of contaminated food or water. Sneezing or coughing also spreads the virus.

Initial signs and symptoms of paralytic polio, such as fever and headache, often mimic those of nonparalytic polio. Within a week, however, other signs and symptoms appear, including: Loss of reflexes. Severe muscle aches or weakness.

How Long Does Polio Last? People who have milder polio symptoms usually make a full recovery within 1–2 weeks. People whose symptoms are more severe can be weak or paralyzed for life, and some may die. After recovery, a few people might develop “post-polio syndrome” as long as 30–40 years after their initial illness.

Symptoms appear three to five days after exposure to the virus and include slight fever, headache, sore throat, vomiting, lack of appetite, and a general feeling of illness and discomfort. The symptoms last for 2-5 days and go away on their own.

Polio is a viral disease which may affect the spinal cord causing muscle weakness and paralysis. The polio virus enters the body through the mouth, usually from hands contaminated with the stool of an infected person.

Three serotypes of poliovirus have been identified – poliovirus type 1 (PV1), type 2 (PV2), and type 3 (PV3) – each with a slightly different capsid protein. All three are extremely virulent and produce the same disease symptoms.

Acute Flaccid Myelitis: The Replacement Polio.

cVDPV type 2 (cVDPV2) are the most prevalent, with 959 cases occurring globally in 2020. Notably, since the African Region was declared to have interrupted transmission of the wild poliovirus in August 2020, cVDPV are now the only form of the poliovirus that affects the African Region.

Poliovirus, the prototypical picornavirus and causative agent of poliomyelitis, is a nonenveloped virus with a single-stranded RNA genome of positive polarity. The virion consists of an icosahedral protein shell, composed of four capsid proteins (VP1, VP2, VP3, and VP4), which encapsidates the RNA genome (1).

The discovery by Karl Landsteiner and Erwin Popper in 1908 that polio was caused by a virus, a discovery made by inoculating macaque monkeys with an extract of nervous tissue from polio victims that was shown to be free of other infectious agents.

By 1991, only 83 percent of Pakistani children had been vaccinated. Research by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in April 1998 cited a failure to vaccinate, vaccine failure, and inadequate immunization strategies as causes for the continued incidences of polio in this time.

Pakistan is one of the countries in which polio is still endemic in the 21st century. In 2019, 146 polio cases were reported across the country with some resulting in deaths.

Wild polio cases have decreased globally by more than 99% since 1988, but the virus is still endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which report dozens of cases every year.