Nadene Goldfoot
Remember polio? Babies as young as 2 months old get their first vaccine in the USA, and again a few more times till 18 months old, then at age 4 and 6. The first polio vaccine was available in the United States in 1955. Thanks to widespread use of polio vaccine, the United States has been polio-free since 1979. But poliovirus is still a threat in some countries.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) had it. In 1921 at age 39, Roosevelt contracted a paralytic illness when swimming, believed at the time to be polio, and his legs became permanently paralyzed. All the children in the USA were afraid each summer of swimming and getting polio. When the vaccine came out for this, we were all so relieved and lined up in huge lines to receive it. Many people infected with polio don’t show any symptoms. Some become temporarily paralyzed; for others, it’s permanent. In 1952, the polio epidemic reached a peak in U.S.: almost 58,000 reported cases and more than 3,000 deaths. This pandemic started in 1949. Polio, or poliomyelitis, is a disabling and life-threatening disease caused by the poliovirus. The virus spreads from person to person and can infect a person's spinal cord, causing paralysis (can't move parts of the body). Most people who get infected with poliovirus (about 72 out of 100) will not have any visible symptoms. About 1 out of 4 people with poliovirus infection will have flu-like symptoms that may include: sore throat, fever, tiredness, nausea, headache, stomach pain. These symptoms usually last 2 to 5 days, then go away on their own. A smaller proportion of people with poliovirus infection will develop other, more serious symptoms that affect the brain and spinal cord:
Mary Mallon (September 23, 1869 – November 11, 1938), also known as Typhoid Mary, was an Irish-born cook believed to have infected 53 people with typhoid fever, three of whom died, and the first person in the United States identified as an asymptomatic carrier of the disease pathogen, Salmonella typhi. This was a bacteria-caused disease.
You can die from typhoid, but it's harder to do so today. Yes, typhoid fever or typhus is deadly, but with modern treatments, very few die of it. Typhoid fever is treated with antibiotics that kill the Salmonella bacteria. Prior to the use of antibiotics, the fatality rate was 20%. Death occurred from overwhelming infection, pneumonia, intestinal bleeding, or intestinal perforation. With antibiotics and supportive care, mortality has been reduced to 1%-2%. With appropriate antibiotic therapy, there is usually improvement within one to two days and recovery within seven to 10 days.
Typhoid fever and
You can get typhoid fever or paratyphoid fever if Salmonella comes into your body. It has in Oregon and Washington through bird feeders. The salmonella outbreak started over the winter. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife says that activity at feeders increases in cold weather, and this pile-up of birds can lead to infection at feeders that are not regularly cleaned.
- You eat food or drink a beverage that has been touched by a person who is shedding (getting rid of) Salmonella Typhi or Salmonella Paratyphi in their poop and who has not washed their hands thoroughly after going to the bathroom.
- Sewage contaminated with Salmonella Typhi or Salmonella Paratyphi gets into water you drink.
- Sewage contaminated with Salmonella Typhi or Salmonella Paratyphi gets into water used to rinse food you eat raw.
An estimated 11–21 million cases of typhoid fever and 200,000 deaths occur worldwide each year. An estimated 5 million cases of paratyphoid occur worldwide each year.
4% of people continued to harbour bacteria in their bodies after recovering from typhoid infection, making them the possible sources of new outbreaks.
- According to the New York Times, at least 1 in 8 U.S. residents have been confirmed infected and at least 1 in 487 people in the country have died from COVID-19.
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