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Inactivated
Polio Vaccine (IPV) can prevent polio.
History:
A 1916 polio epidemic in the United States killed 6,000 people and
paralyzed 27,000 more. In the early 1950’s there were more
than 20,000 cases of polio each year. Polio vaccination was begun
in 1955. By 1960 the number of cases had dropped to about 3,000,
and by 1979 there were only about 10. The success of polio vaccination
in the U.S. and other countries sparked a world-wide effort to eliminate
polio.
Today:
No wild polio has been reported in the United States for over 20
years. But the disease is still common in some parts of the world.
It would only take one case of polio from another country to bring
the disease back if we were not protected by vaccine. If the effort
to eliminate the disease from the world is successful, some day
we
won’t need polio vaccine. Until then, we need to keep getting
our children vaccinated.
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Oral
Polio Vaccine: No longer recommended
There
are two kinds of polio vaccine: IPV, which is the shot
recommended in the United States today, and a live, oral polio
vaccine (OPV), which is drops that are swallowed.
Until
recently OPV was recommended for most children in the United
States. OPV helped us rid the country of polio, and it is
still used in many parts of the world.
Both
vaccines give immunity to polio, but OPV is better at keeping
the disease from spreading to other people. However, for a
few people (about one in 2.4 million), OPV actually causes
polio. Since the risk of getting polio in the United States
is now extremely low, experts believe that using oral polio
vaccine is no longer worth the slight risk, except in limited
circumstances which your doctor can describe. The polio shot
(IPV) does not cause polio. If you or your child will be
getting OPV, ask for a copy of the OPV supplemental Vaccine
Information Statement.
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