Helloo! And welcome back. Today we’re going to talk about….you’ve guessed it…vaccines! Specifically, the Polio vaccine! I know so much fun right? But even though I continue to joke about how we constantly have to talk about vaccines, since so people don’t believe in them (plus to you know generally educate the world (or just those who read my blog)) this one hits a little different, a little more personal. My great uncle actually had polio as a kid which has led me to do a little more research into this week’s blog. First I want to talk briefly about what polio is, the first vaccine and then bring it on around to what’s happening today.
So what is polio?
If you’re like me, we live in a world of not hearing much of this disease. If we did, it was more so in history classes, or at least from what I remember. According to the CDC, polio is “a disabling and life-threatening disease caused by the poliovirus.” It is extremely rare in the US as there has been no virus starting in the US since 1979 (CDC). There has been some strains that have been brought over from travelers. This virus can be spread from person to person and through droplet transmission and fecal-oral transmission. It has a reservoir of only humans. AKA only humans can get it, so like your dogs are fine. This virus lives in the infected person’s throat and gut. Comparing these to the other diseases we have learned these locations seem like a hot commodity for the virus/bacterial hangout. This virus can also infect a person’s spinal cord which is what causes this disease to be so debilitating as it can cause paralysis. While this is one of the more severe symptoms it seems to be one of the more popular ones. I’m not going to lie, it’s also the scariest symptom, at least to me.
History
Polio outbreaks began to spark in the late 1940’s. There were no vaccines nor treatments. The virus seemed to spark during the summer leading for parent’s to become fearful in letting their children outside to play in fear of their child contracting the disease. But I mean can you blame them? At this time you would think they don’t really know what’s going on, how to stop it, let alone prevent it. I mean picture it, all of you can see is your friend’s children becoming paralyzed from this disease, so how could you not think about your own children. Even though I’m not a parent, I’ve heard multiple times of how devastating it is to a parent not being able to help their own child. My uncle was born in the early 40’s and although I don’t know much, I know he was one of those children during that time that was affected. I do know though that it left him debilitated growing up. Unfortunately, my uncle was just a decade short of the vaccine as the first came out in the early 50s. According to History.com, after many years of researching and experimenting Jonas Salk created a vaccine that was deemed effective and safe in 1955.
Polio in Today’s world
In Today’s time of 2020 there are now two different types of vaccines, the Inactivated Polio Vaccine (IPV) and the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV). The IPV is injected while the OPV is given in the form of oral droplets. Which first I don’t think I knew this was a thing. I mean I guess I could have seen it with the flu vaccine coming in the form of a nasal spray but I don’t know I just thought that it was interesting. I mean wouldn’t it like help in giving it out since with the IPV you would need a new syringe/needle every time but with the OPV would you really have to like use as many supplies. I mean yes I know safety wise it’s better but theoretically? But anyways, I found an article that I thought was interesting. Since polio is more prevalent in third world countries they still continue to fight this disease. For example, just last week, another child was diagnosed with the disease in the Philippines making it their 17th case. Which slightly upsets me as we know there is a possibility of being able to eradicate it completely and like we’re almost there just not completely. And it’s not like they’re not trying to you know but I think maybe they just don’t have the supplies. Or maybe it’s like the situation in Ghana. They recently released that they were getting ready to administer the IPV out to children under the age of two. The reason they needed to administer this vaccine is not that these children weren’t vaccinated but the vaccination they got only accounted for Type 1 and Type 3 of the disease (there are three different types). The reason they only got these two types and not Type 2 was because it’s numbers were so low that they thought it had been eradicated but has since found out that it has not. Which I’m sure frustrated them because like maybe it made things easier only doing the two instead of all three but I guess that’s why it’s better to be safe than sorry. So these children are now being vaccinated with the IPV. Which I’m glad that caught this because it could have been bad.
Better safe than sorry?
But I don’t think all agree that it is better to be safer than sorry as some groups have asked for the stop of the OPV vaccine. Their argument is that since the OPV contains a form of the live strand, that strand can contaminate the waters and infect those who are not fully immune to the disease. Which I think is an interesting argument because you would think that if they have created this vaccine then they would have thought of all possible cases that could happen. Such as, this very rare case of the vaccine strand actually infecting other people. Although I didn’t create this vaccine I feel like some of their examples or like stats of this happening has to be very strong in order to stop using the vaccine all together. Now, vaccine-resistant strands? I can see that but saying that people are infecting others from the vaccine kind of throws me off. I mean it’s an interesting argument. They say that there has been 157 “vaccine-derived” cases which outnumbers the 107 cases that have occurred from a wild type of poliovirus. These cases are also out of third-world countries like Pakistan and Nigeria. I think this is an interesting article because most times when you hear the stopping of vaccines it’s more like oh my goodness they’re terrible get rid of all of them. But for me I haven’t gotten that vibe, more of a genuine concern that this could be a rising issue. Either way a part of me is just glad that there is a vaccine in general because after hearing about my uncle’s fight with polio I’m glad there’s something that could help us now. I just wish it would have came a decade earlier.
Mo's Microbes 