Making Polio History

"It happened quickly, suddenly without warning. One day I was active and within hours I could not even walk. Next for me was 10 months in quarantine..."

The dreaded P word was once talked about in the early 50's as a common enemy to be avoided. Forget attending school, public playgrounds or places where people could come in contact with the deadly virus. Some left the big city to escape, others just hunkered down that summer of 1951. 80,000 in Canada alone contacted Polio and most were young people under the age of 21. Complications included paralysis and premature death. I survived, thank God.

Polio has been around all through recorded history and epidemics were commonplace in the first decades of the 20th century. Treatments were limited to quarantines and the infamous “iron lung,” a metal coffin-like contraption that aided respiration. Although children, and especially infants, were among the worst affected, adults including President Franklin D. Roosevelt were left partially paralyzed. 

Jonas Salk first conducted research on viruses in the 1930s when he was a medical student at New York University. In 1947, he became head of a research laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh and in 1948 was awarded a grant to study the polio virus and develop a possible vaccine. By 1950, he had an early version of his polio vaccine and by 1955 it was announced that the vaccine was effective and safe. A nationwide inoculation campaign began. New polio cases dropped dramatically and Dr. Salk became an international celebrity.

Polio is a viral disease which affects the spinal cord causing muscle weakness and paralysis. Polio is spread when the stool of an infected person is introduced into the mouth of another person through contaminated water or food. Maintaining high levels of polio immunization in the community is the single most effective preventive measure.

Polio used to be a big killer. Today, polio has been eradicated in all but two countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The World Health Organization (WHO) and Rotary International hopes to achieve global eradication of polio by 2018.

Now the tough part...PPS (Post Polio Syndrome) is a little known condition that affects polio survivors ten to 40 years after the initial infection. PPS is characterized by further weakening of muscles that were previously affected by the polio infection. 

Symptoms include fatigue, slowly progressive muscle weakness and deterioration. Joint pain and bone deformities are common. PPS is generally not life-threatening and there is no effective treatment for PPS. 

So people like me have been hit twice. I was fortunate to have survived the 50's and today I am grateful to still have decent mobility. I have long since abandoned the pleasures of skiing, tennis and basketball in favour of short walks and 9 holes of golf. No regrets, just huge gratitude. 

I have witnessed polio victims in East Africa and Asia who are far worse off than I. Dragging useless limbs across a busy roadway with hands torn by tarmac and rough roads are sights that still haunt me. Unable to work, they are forced to beg for money and scraps of food. They are the forgotten, as bad off in some places as those with leprosy.  

I first learned of the work of Rotary International in the 1980's during its global effort to eradicate polio. Previous to that I had been involved in the work of Easter Seals in Canada. I followed with great interest the efforts of Rotarians in reaching remote areas of the world to vaccinate indigenous people. Massive attempts were made to mobilize volunteers with the goal of year 2000 to celebrate the defeat of polio.

That however was not to be, for there were areas in Africa and South East Asia that did not allow vaccination initiatives to be deployed. It was the children who suffered the most. 

Now once again, there is renewed push to defeat polio. Rotarians, NGOs, the WHO and other medical agencies are now poised to once and for all put an end to polio.

Thank God I have witnessed this in my lifetime. I can only imagine a better day where children will no longer suffer from a disease that for me as a four year old was deemed incurable.