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If you were born in the United States after 1979 and have lived here since, you've grown up in a polio-free country.

Don't take it for granted.

Timelines note the highly contagious virus predates recorded history. More than 3,000 years ago in Egypt, cryptic evidence showed signs the disease always was a far greater crippler than a killer.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt contracted polio at age 39, the virus drew even more attention and soon medical philanthropy took flight via his March of Dimes campaign.

In my childhood home, I lived with it, too. My mother caught a mild case of polio when she was pregnant with my younger brother, Jim. I remember waving to her as she peered from the window of the train she'd boarded in Muncie, Ind., headed to Cleveland Clinic for a checkup.

In the early 1950s, the U.S. reported its most cases ever when the epidemic hit nearly 60,000 individuals.

Folks were frightened. No one knew the cause of the transmission of the disease. Families avoided swimming pools, water fountains and other public places.

What health professionals did know, however, is that polio attacks the nervous system, quickly destroying nerve cells that activate muscles, causing irreversible paralysis within hours. Paralysis caused immobilization of breathing muscles.

I recall collecting dimes for coin saver booklets to give to the March of Dimes, the charity that advanced development of Jonas Salk's injected vaccine as well Albert Sabin's live oral vaccine (OPV).

Back then, my father's construction business built a camp designed for children who had been crippled by polio kids about my age who wore leg braces or were bound to wheelchairs.

See original here:
Why the battle against polio isn't over