History
Poliomyelitis, or polio, is an illness contrived from suffering under a certain type of poliovirus. Poliovirus affects nerves and thereby induces partial or full paralysis. Polio has an extensive history dating back to the late 1700s, when the first description of polio was recorded. In the United States, the epidemic had its first outbreak in the mid 1800s. The disease spread rapidly, killing 6,000 and paralyzing 27,000 in 1916. Before vaccines came into use, there was a period during which many precautions were taken to manually prevent the spread of polio. Environments were sanitized impeccably but, unfortunately, this did not allow the immune system to learn to protect itself through natural exposure and worsened the situation. The inactivated polio vaccine was manufactured and distributed in 1955. Following that, the oral polio vaccine came into existence in 1961. Since then there has been a steady decrease in cases from 350,000 cases in 1988 to 650 in 2011.
