Polio is back - First case in Russia in 13years

[malaise]

http://wap.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE64D170.htm
<snip>
MOSCOW, May 14 (Reuters) - Russia has confirmed its first polio case in 13 years in an infant visiting from Tajikistan, but there is no immediate threat of a wider outbreak, the country's main public health body said on Friday.

The 9-month-old girl was diagnosed with the disease after arriving in the Siberian region of Irkutsk from the Central Asian state, where at least 12 people have died from a polio outbreak, said Rospotrebnadzor spokeswoman Lyubov Voropayeva.

"All the necessary epidemiological measures have been taken. There is not currently any threat the disease will spread," Voropayeva said.

Tests in a Moscow hospital found that a second girl from Tajikistan, also 9 months old, was carrying the polio virus but had not developed the disease, Voropayeva said. The last case of polio was confirmed in Russia in 1997.

Polio, which spreads in areas with poor sanitation, attacks the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis within hours of infection. Children under the age of 3 are most vulnerable.

[EndersDame]

1. This is why i am a big fan of vaccinations

[Arkansas Granny]

5. Me too. I can remember the fear of polio when I was a kid. I also knew

and went to school some kids who got polio. We were among the first to be vaccinated when the vaccine became available. They had mass clinics at schools in the rural area where we lived and entire families would show up for the shots.

[trotsky]

2. "Polio, which spreads in areas with poor sanitation"

This is not true. Polio can spread where there is good sanitation too - unless we're going to say that the USA prior to 1954 was a dirty third world country.

[Lasher]

3. Primary infection route is fecal to oral.

But oral to oral transmission does occur.

[malaise]

4. This is why I am not a fan of neo-liberalism

Unless government is involved the greedy will neglect the poor.

[SheilaT]

6. My first question, which is not addressed in the

article, is where exactly did the polio come from? In other words, what was the disease reservoir?

I know that in this country the only cases of polio in some decades have been from exposure to the live virus. I wonder if that wasn't the trigger in this case.

[trotsky]

7. Polio can surivive outside a host, in the environment, for months.

But there are also human reservoirs throughout Africa and central Asia, so I'd be inclined to suspect the latter.