| Description: | In this particular picture, a number of Latin-American children are seen playing in a water run-off zone on the outskirts of a rural town, which is a prime area for an unimmunized child to acquire the poliovirus. Poliovirus is spread by coming into contact with stool from an infected person, therefore, playing amongst contaminated water can easily spread the disease to unwary children, and adults. The poliovirus “enters a child’s (or adult’s) body through the mouth. Sometimes it does not cause serious illness. But sometimes it causes paralysis (can’t move arm or leg). It can kill people who get it, usually by paralyzing the muscles that help them breathe. Polio used to be very common in the United States. It paralyzed and killed thousands of people each year before we had a vaccine for it.”
This image is from the 1989 Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Polio Eradication Field Guide. Beginning in 1988, the efforts of the World Health Organization (WHO), Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and UNICEF, through the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, has lead to the foreseeable global eradication of this viral disease. Regions that include northern India, northern Nigeria, and the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, are still “epidemiological challenges”.The PAHO is the Regional Office of the WHO, and if you so desire to make use of this image, please seek permission to do so through the link below. |
