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Direct detection of the poliovirus from the throat or feces can be achieved using reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) or genomic sequencing to identify the genotype of the poliovirus infecting the patient. Serological tests can be used to determine whether the patient has been previously vaccinated. There are no therapeutic measures for polio; treatment is limited to various supportive measures. These include pain relievers, rest, heat therapy to ease muscle spasms, physical therapy and corrective braces if necessary to help with walking, and mechanical ventilation to assist with breathing if necessary.
Two different vaccines were introduced in the 1950s that have led to the dramatic decrease in polio worldwide ( [link] ). The Salk vaccine is an inactivated polio virus that was first introduced in 1955. This vaccine is delivered by intramuscular injection. The Sabin vaccine is an oral polio vaccine that contains an attenuated virus; it was licensed for use in 1962. There are three serotypes of poliovirus that cause disease in humans; both the Salk and the Sabin vaccines are effective against all three.
Attenuated viruses from the Sabin vaccine are shed in the feces of immunized individuals and thus have the potential to infect nonimmunized individuals. By the late 1990s, the few polio cases originating in the United States could be traced back to the Sabin vaccine. In these cases, mutations of the attenuated virus following vaccination likely allowed the microbe to revert to a virulent form. For this reason, the United States switched exclusively to the Salk vaccine in 2000. Because the Salk vaccine contains an inactivated virus, there is no risk of transmission to others (see Vaccines ). Currently four doses of the vaccine are recommended for children: at 2, 4, and 6–18 months of age, and at 4–6 years of age.
In 1988, WHO launched the Global Polio Eradication Initiative with the goal of eradicating polio worldwide through immunization. That goal is now close to being realized. Polio is now endemic in only a few countries, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria, where vaccination efforts have been disrupted by military conflict or political instability.
In the years after World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union entered a period known as the Cold War. Although there was no armed conflict, the two super powers were diplomatically and economically isolated from each other, as represented by the so-called Iron Curtain between the Soviet Union and the rest of the world. After 1950, migration or travel outside of the Soviet Union was exceedingly difficult, and it was equally difficult for foreigners to enter the Soviet Union. The United States also placed strict limits on Soviets entering the country. During the Eisenhower administration, only 20 graduate students from the Soviet Union were allowed to come to study in the United States per year.
Yet even the Iron Curtain was no match for polio. The Salk vaccine became widely available in the West in 1955, and by the time the Sabin vaccine was ready for clinical trials, most of the susceptible population in the United States and Canada had already been vaccinated against polio. Sabin needed to look elsewhere for study participants. At the height of the Cold War, Mikhail Chumakov was allowed to come to the United States to study Sabin’s work. Likewise, Sabin, an American microbiologist, was allowed to travel to the Soviet Union to begin clinical trials. Chumakov organized Soviet-based production and managed the experimental trials to test the new vaccine in the Soviet Union. By 1959, over ten million Soviet children had been safely treated with Sabin’s vaccine.
As a result of a global vaccination campaign with the Sabin vaccine, the overall incidence of polio has dropped dramatically. Today, polio has been nearly eliminated around the world and is only rarely seen in the United States. Perhaps one day soon, polio will become the third microbial disease to be eradicated from the general population [small pox and rinderpest (the cause of cattle plague) being the first two].
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