Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from April, 2013

Vaccinating the Handicaped future (polio)

Vaccinating the handicapped future Muhammad Shahid Imran Polio is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus. It cripples the nervous system, and can cause total paralysis in a matter of hours. One in 200 polio infections leads to irreversible paralysis (usually in the legs) and among those 5% to 10% die when their breathing muscles become immobilized. In 1954 Dr. Jonas Salk invented first polio vaccine for the virus and later Dr Albert Sabine developed oral vaccine which allowed administration of vaccine by trained volunteers. These developments led the world to last case in the Americas in 1991. The oral polio vaccine used in the developing world, is safe, effective, easy to administer, and inexpensive, but OPV consists of live, weakened viruses, which in very rare cases can cause paralysis. In settings with very low OPV coverage, OPV vaccine viruses can also mutate and begin to circulate in the population, just like wild polioviruses. Oral polio vaccine is now