Global Group Releases Update on International Status of Polio
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday, Nov. 1, announced an update on the global status of polio. According to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), only four countries remain polio-endemic. This is an all-time low, but travelers should still be sure that they are fully immunized against the disease.
Nigeria, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are the polio-endemic countries, while the following countries have within the past six months reported imported polio cases: Angola, Burma (Myanmar), Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Niger, and Sudan. DRC and Burma (Myanmar) had been polio-free for more than five years.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommends that all infants and children in the United States receive four doses of inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV), administered at 2, 4, and 6–18 months and 4–6 years of age. Adults who are unvaccinated, incompletely vaccinated, or whose vaccination status is unknown should receive a full series of IPV.
Polio is an infectious disease caused by a virus and is spread from person-to-person. The disease mainly affects children under 5 years of age. Polio may be spread when the virus enters the mouth of a person who has come in contact with the stool of an infected person (for example, by changing diapers and not washing hands before touching the mouth) or from fecal contamination of food or drinking water.
Most people infected with the poliovirus have no symptoms, but some infections cause paralysis and even death. Until the 1950s, polio crippled thousands of children in industrialized countries. Soon after the introduction of effective vaccines in the late 1950s (IPV) and early 1960s (OPV), polio was brought under control and practically eliminated as a public health problem in industrialized countries.
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