There are more polio cases in Ukraine. Can a forgotten disease become a real threat again? – If we neglect vaccination, polio from Ukraine may also threaten Poland – warned Prof. Włodzimierz Gut, a virologist, commenting on Heine-Medin’s cases of five children in the Ukrainian Transcarpathia.
- The low level of polio immunization in Ukraine is the main reason that there are new cases of the disease there
- Prof. Gut notes that if we do not vaccinate children, polio may also return to Poland
- You can find more such stories on the TvoiLokony home page
Polio in Ukraine is coming back
As he explained, Ukraine has a big problem as not all children are vaccinated there. – Until about ten years ago, there were about 20 percent vaccinated against polio. population, later sharply made up, but so far managed to get vaccinated up to 50 percent. inhabitants – said prof. Gut.
According to the expert, polio, which currently affects children in Ukraine, is different from the one that mankind has fought before – the eradication of this virus in wild form, i.e. complete extermination was announced in 2015.
- Editors recommend: They have had polio. What was the treatment like in the People’s Republic of Poland?
– It was a great success in terms of eliminating smallpox. Now, the smallpox virus is present in only two laboratories in the world – reminded prof. Gut, who was part of the WHO viral disease eradication team.
The rest of the article is under the podcast.
Today we are dealing with a strain that has grown out of vaccines when a live, but weakened virus was still being used to produce them. – Attenuated or weakened viruses are not dangerous to humans, they are not able to cause disease. But if such a virus passes through passages, it can regain its virulence after some time – explained Prof. Gut.
The mechanism of passage is that this previously harmless virus is transmitted – usually by the intestinal route – to an unvaccinated person, and from there to the next and the next, it changes and one of the following versions regains the ability to infect and cause disease.
Due to this threat, at some point patients began to receive vaccines containing dead viruses, which, however, also has its downsides. – Vaccination with a preparation with killed virus does not immunize against the intestinal version of poliomyelitis, but only against infection of the nervous system – emphasized the virologist. He added that only a live pathogen vaccine could prevent the intestines from being infected with the virus.
A person who has taken the preparation with the killed virus, if he becomes infected with the vaccine strain, will not have symptoms, but the pathogen will multiply in his digestive system and return to the environment along with the faeces.
– So if we don’t vaccinate our children, polio, which we trounced over just a few years ago, may come back and wreak havoc again – warned prof. Gut.
– Statistically, one in 200 infected people will get paralysis – he emphasized. He added that although it may seem unlikely and distant in time, it should be remembered that the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic was to start with a bat in China. – And I don’t think anyone needs to be told how dangerous a virus is because of its volatility – said Prof. Gut.
You can buy the injectable polio vaccine from Medonet Market.
Author: Mira Suchodolska / PAP
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