Polio News and Research

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Poliomyelitis (polio) is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus that invades the nervous system and can cause severe paralysis. The virus enters the body through the mouth and multiplies in the intestine. Initial symptoms are fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, stiffness in the neck, and pain in the limbs. One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis (usually in the legs). Among those paralyzed, 5-10% die when their breathing muscles become immobilized. Polio mainly affects children under five years of age. Naturally occurring polio was eliminated in the U.S. in 1979 and in the Western Hemisphere by 1991; however, worldwide efforts are continuing towards eradication of this contagious and devastating disease.

Many polio survivors face lifelong late effects

Polio survivors facing the little-known late effects of the disease are being overlooked, writes Neena Bhandari.

23 Oct 2024

Gaza aims for 90% vaccination coverage in second round of polio campaign

The second round of an emergency polio vaccination campaign is scheduled to start on 14 October 2024 in Gaza, to vaccinate an estimated 591,700 children under ten years of age with a second dose of the novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) vaccine.

14 Oct 2024

Happening in Springfield: New immigrants offer economic promise, health system challenges

When Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance claimed Haitian immigrants had caused infectious-disease rates to "skyrocket" in Springfield, Ohio, local health commissioner Chris Cook checked the records.

10 Oct 2024

FAU researchers highlight new vaccination barriers

Vaccines to prevent common and serious infectious diseases have had a greater impact on improving human health than any other medical advance of the 20th century, surpassing even sanitation and potable water. From the global eradication of smallpox in 1980 to the unprecedented development of effective and safe mRNA vaccines for COVID-19, vaccinations have played crucial roles in preventing millions of premature deaths and hospitalizations in adults and children.

8 Oct 2024

Trump leads, and his party follows, on vaccine skepticism

More than four years ago, former President Donald Trump’s administration accelerated the development and rollout of the covid-19 vaccine.

4 Oct 2024

Time-restricted eating could offer health benefits to adults with metabolic syndrome

More than one-third of adults in the United States have metabolic syndrome, a cluster of conditions that significantly raise a person's risk of heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes.

1 Oct 2024

Advanced brain mapping reveals neuronal subtypes and their connections

Scientists at the Salk Institute are unveiling a new brain-mapping neurotechnology called Single Transcriptome Assisted Rabies Tracing (START). The cutting-edge tool combines two advanced technologies-;monosynaptic rabies virus tracing and single-cell transcriptomics-;to map the brain's intricate neuronal connections with unparalleled precision.

30 Sep 2024

Wastewater monitoring proves effective for tracking foodborne pathogens

First used in the 1940s to monitor for polio, wastewater surveillance proved such a powerful disease monitoring tool that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) established the National Wastewater Surveillance System to support SARS-CoV-2 monitoring in September of 2020.

20 Sep 2024

As interest from families wanes, pediatricians scale back on covid shots

When pediatrician Eric Ball opened a refrigerator full of childhood vaccines, all the expected shots were there — DTaP, polio, pneumococcal vaccine — except one.

4 Sep 2024

Calls for humanitarian pause to safeguard polio vaccination efforts in Gaza

Two rounds of a polio vaccination campaign are expected to be launched at the end of August and September 2024 across the Gaza Strip to prevent the spread of circulating variant type 2 poliovirus (cVDPV2).

18 Aug 2024

Study reveals impact of climate change on enterovirus outbreaks

Outbreaks of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD), which causes fever and rash in young children, typically occur in the summer months.

6 Aug 2024

Comprehensive meta-analysis offers insights into strategies for increasing immunization uptake

Vaccines are safe and effective, and help reduce death and illness. But global vaccination rates are suboptimal and have trended downward, leaving humanity more vulnerable to vaccine-preventable diseases such as COVID-19, influenza, measles, polio, and HPV.

1 Aug 2024

Salk Institute receives CIRM funding for stem cell research on aging and neurodegeneration

The Salk Institute was awarded $3.6 million by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), one of the world's largest institutions dedicated to regenerative medicine.

31 Jul 2024

Study: Danger circuit relies on neuropeptides, not neurotransmitters

In the split second as you accidentally touch the hot handle of a cast iron skillet, pain and a sense of danger rush in.

22 Jul 2024

Global childhood immunization coverage: Stalled progress and growing gaps

Global childhood immunization coverage stalled in 2023, leaving 2.7 million additional children un- and under-vaccinated compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2019, according to data published today by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF.

15 Jul 2024

Radiometer celebrates 70 years in acute care diagnostics

In 1954, Radiometer launched the world’s first commercially available blood gas analyzer. This event catapulted a small Danish company that produced devices for the radio industry into the foray of acute care diagnostics.

From Radiometer Medical 1 Jul 2024

Clinical trial seeks to evaluate safety of new EV-D68 treatment

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is sponsoring a clinical trial to evaluate the safety of an investigational monoclonal antibody to treat enterovirus D68 (EV-D68), which can cause severe respiratory and neurological diseases such as acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) – similar to polio. Scientists are striving to better understand AFM, which has emerged in the United States with spikes in cases every other year, primarily in the late-summer months over the last decade.

28 Jun 2024

Salk researchers unveil SWI/SNF variants' role in macrophage immune responses

Bacteria, parasites, viruses-;the immune system tackles them all. At the front line of the human immune response are cells called macrophages, which are responsible for correctly identifying intruders and then directing how the entire immune system responds.

5 Jun 2024

77th World Health Assembly to address global health challenges under 'All for Health, Health for All'

As the world continues to grapple with the aftermath of the most severe pandemic in a century, the Seventy-seventh session of the World Health Assembly will convene under the banner of "All for Health, Health for All."

22 May 2024

4 ways vaccine skeptics mislead you on measles and more

Measles is on the rise in the United States. So far this year, the number of cases is about 17 times what it was, on average, during the same period in each of the four years before, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.