Definition of Polio

Polio is a contagious viral illness. In its most severe form, polio causes paralysis, difficulty breathing and sometimes death.

During the first half of the 20th century, no illness inspired more dread and panic in the United States than did polio. Sometimes called infantile paralysis, polio struck in the U.S. every summer and fall with virulent epidemics. In 1952, when the polio epidemic was at its peak, 3,000 people died.

By the mid-1950s, mass immunization with the polio vaccine began to slow polio's spread, and in 1979 the last case of wild polio polio caused naturally, not by a vaccine containing live virus occurred in the U.S. Today, despite a concerted global eradication campaign, wild poliovirus continues to afflict children and adults in developing nations, including Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advises that you take precautions to protect against polio if you're traveling to certain parts of the world where there is risk of polio. Adults previously vaccinated with a primary polio vaccine series and who are traveling to areas where polio is occurring should receive a booster dose of inactivated poliovirus (IPV). Immunity following a booster dose of IPV lasts a lifetime.

The above information thankfully comes from the Mayo Clinic.com at the following link.