Polio continues to spread in Yemen, a nation previously polio free. The number of cases reported cracked 80 and the World Health Organization (WHO) expects the total to pass 100 in this latest polio epidemic.
Poliomylelitis better known as polio continues to spread despite a massive campaign to immunize over 6 million children against this horrendous disease. The disease delivers paralysis and severely debilitates whoever contracts this virus, transmitted primarily through water.
Some information from the WHO website:
Poliomyelitis and its symptoms: Poliomyelitis (polio) is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus. It invades the nervous system, and can cause total paralysis in a matter of hours. The virus enters the body through the mouth and multiplies in the intestine. Initial symptoms are fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, and stiffness in the neck and pain in the limbs. One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis (usually in the legs). Among those paralyzed, 5%-10% die when their breathing muscles become immobilized.
Polio mainly affects children under five years of age. There is no cure, just multiple doses of the vaccine.
WHO started a campaign to wipe out polio back in 1988 when victims of the disease numbered over 350,000. For the last few years, new cases numbered less then 2000. That number could quite possibly go up as new cases continue to show up
The disease made a rapid resurgence in the last two years and Yemen is one of 16 countries where polio had been wiped out. This outbreak probably stems from a message from extremist clerics in Nigeria who claimed the U.S. was trying to make them infertile via the polio vaccine. Some researchers suspect the new outbreaks came as Muslim clerics traveled to Mecca in Saudi spread the virus that way.
John Stith is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
