Of the nearly 58,000 cases reported that year, 3,145 died and 21,269 were left with mild to disabling paralysis. Intensive care medicine has its origin in the fight against polio. Most hospitals in the 1950s had limited access to iron lungs for patients unable to breathe without mechanical assistance. Respiratory centers designed to assist the most severe polio patients, first established in 1952 at the Blegdam Hospital of Copenhagen by Danish anesthesiologist Bjørn Ibsen, were the precursors of modern intensive care units (ICU). (A year later, Ibsen would establish the worlds first dedicated ICU. )The polio epidemics not only altered the lives of those who survived them, but also brought profound cultural changes, spurring grassroots fund-raising campaigns that would revolutionize medical philanthropy, and giving rise to the modern field of rehabilitation therapy. As one of the largest disabled groups in the world, polio survivors also helped to advance the modern disability rights movement through campaigns for the social and civil rights of the disabled. The World Health Organization estimates that there are 10 to 20 million polio survivors worldwide. In 1977, there were 254,000 persons living in the United States who had been paralyzed by polio. According to doctors and local polio support groups, some 40,000 polio survivors with varying degrees of paralysis were living in Germany, 30,000 in Japan, 24,000 in France, 16,000 in Australia, 12,000 in Canada and 12,000 in the United Kingdom in 2001.
Etymology
The term derives from the Ancient Greek poliós (πολιός), meaning "grey", myelós (µυελός "marrow"), referring to the grey matter of the spinal cord, and the suffix -itis, which denotes inflammation, i.e., inflammation of the spinal cords grey matter, although a severe infection can extend into the brainstem and even higher structures, resulting in polioencephalitis, resulting in inability to breathe, requiring mechanical assistance such as an iron lung. Research
The Poliovirus Antivirals Initiative was launched in 2007 with the aim of developing antiviral medications for polio, but while several promising candidates were identified, none have progressed beyond Phase II clinical trials. Pocapavir (a capsid inhibitor) and V-7404 (a protease inhibitor) may speed up viral clearance and are being studied for this purpose. References
Further reading
Kluger Jefferey (2004). Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio. New York: G. P. Putnams Sons. ISBN 978-0-399-15216-0. Oshinsky DM (2005). Polio: An American story. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-515294-4. polio. Shaffer MM, Bernard S (2005). The death of a disease: a history of the eradication of poliomyelitis. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-3677-4. Shell M (2005). Polio and its aftermath: the paralysis of culture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01315-5. polio. Wilson DJ (2005). Living with polio: the epidemic and its survivors. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-90103-9. Wilson DJ, Silver J (2007). Polio voices: an oral history from the American polio epidemics and worldwide eradication efforts. New York: Praeger. ISBN 978-0-275-99492-1.