455623 Word Count 1505 Compare and contrast the elimination programs for polio and leprosy Diseases with significant morbidity and mortality have often become the target of disease elimination programs that attempt to reduce the incidence and prevalence of a particular disease and remove the disease impact from endemic regions. Elimination programs are strategies that attempt to reduce to zero the incidence of a targeted disease in a specified population, using various public health interventions such as a mass vaccination program. This essay will compare and contrast the elimination programs for polio and leprosy through a review of the research literature that has analysed various aspects of both programs initiated by the World Health …show more content…
The following definition for elimination of disease was presented to the conference: “reduction to zero of the incidence of a specified disease in a defined geographical area as a result of deliberate efforts; continued intervention measures are required”(Dowdle 1998:24). The above definition of elimination indicates that geographical areas need to be defined and that intervention measures are ongoing. The polio eradication initiative and the leprosy elimination program are two examples of disease elimination programs in progress. This is the next stage from control where disease incidence, prevalence, morbidity and mortality are reduced to an acceptable level (ibid). Control versus Elimination Each program has unique features that differentiate the interventions required to eliminate a particular disease pathogen. “The major difference between a control and an elimination program is the “concentration of activities to identify and attack foci of clinical and asymptomatic infections that perpetuate transmission”(Moonen et al
An emerging diseases class must also anticipate what the potential issues are that may halt the eradication process. An example of a problem is when Foege had to figure out what to do when faced with a low supply of the vaccine. There were two main choices, try and target the places where the outbreak occurred, or dilute the vaccine and give it to everyone. Each had their own downside however. If Foege and his team targeted the wrong places then the virus would still spread and inevitably infect everyone in the area and wreak havoc on the region since all of the vaccine would be gone. The other option had an equally catastrophic down side. If the vaccine was too diluted and did not take then the virus could become active and those inoculated would most likely become infected with vaccine-borne smallpox. To make a long story short, the first option was chosen and actually lead to the “Surveillance and Containment” method. This method entailed surveying the population for anyone who could have the outbreak and then making sure to contain any potential outbreak from occurring. This idea of identifying the problems that are being faced and weighing the options against each other is an important concept to understand in an emerging diseases class. In an eradication effort Foege lets us know
At first polio was a troubling prospect when it first reared its ugly head in the United States of America. In a noble effort to be rid of polio, America as a whole was to adopt stringent sanitation measures. Everywhere, especially the home was to be spotless and clean in order to try and prevent the contraction of polio. This coupled with the view that America as a western nation seemed impervious to such a lowly disease tried to assuage American fear of the disease. Despite the measures commonly adopted throughout the myriad of cities and towns, polio still managed to spread around the country and wreak havoc taking thousands of lives. An outbreak that ravaged America claimed nearly 27,000 lives in a terrible reckoning before it finally subsided. This and several other troubling outbreaks
Polio: An American Story describes a struggle to find a vaccine on polio through several researchers’ lives, and over the course of many years. The second thesis is the struggle between Salk and Sabin, two bitter rivals who had their own vaccine that they believed would cure polio. The author David M. Oshinsky, is describing how difficult it was to find the cure to a horrifying disease, which lasted from the Great Depression until the 1960’s. Oshinsky then writes about how foundations formed as fundraisers, to support polio research. Lastly, the author demonstrates how researchers were forced to back track on multiple occasions, to learn more about polio.
Heymann, D. (2004). Control of Communicable Diseases Manual.18th edition. Washington, DC: American Public Health Association.
The Polio Journals: Lessons from My Mother, by Anne K. Gross, is the heartbreaking and emotional version of one woman’s life as a polio survivor. Carol Greenfeld Rosenstiel, the author’s mother, contracted polio in 1927 at the young age of two. From then until her death from lung cancer in 1985, Carol Rosenstiel was a paraplegic, suffering paralysis below the waist. She did successfully marry, raise children, and enjoy a profession as a concert musician while confined to a wheelchair. She kept journals that Anne Gross used, after her mother’s death, to reminisce her mother’s life. She was encouraged by her courageous and pitiless efforts to attain recognition in the world of the non-disabled.
Paralytic poliomyelitis, "polio", held a reign of terror over this nation for decades. But unless you were born before 1955, polio may seem to be just another ephemeral disease that has been nonexistent for years. Those born before 1955 remember having a great fear of this horrible disease which crippled thousands of once active, healthy children. This disease had no cure and no identified causes, which made it all the more terrifying. People did everything that they had done in the past to prevent the spread of disease, such as quarantining areas, but these tactics never seemed to work. Polio could not be contained. Many people did not have the money to care for a family member with polio. This was one of the reasons the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis was organized. The March of Dimes, the fund raiser headed by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, raised thousands and thousands of dollars to help people care for their polio stricken family members and to aid in the cost of research for a vaccine that would put an end to this misery that affected the lives of so many people.
In the United States there was a vicious enemy everyone feared. In the 1950s the United States was under attack by the ruthless Poliomyelitis virus. Americans lived in constant fear of their children contracting this horrible virus that left many children paralyzed. During the outbreaks in the 1950s foundations were created to fund research and create awareness to help find a way to eradicate the virus. Americans become focused on doing anything in their power to fight this virus off. Jonas Salk’s Exploration of Medicine and research led to the creation of the Polio vaccine that united the country, prevented further outbreaks, and introduced a new form of treatment which has limited the fatality of polio infections today.
Eradication is the concept that a disease is entirely eliminated in a region. (Carter n.d.) Only one infectious disease to date, smallpox, has been categorized as eradicated worldwide (CDC 2010). How did this eradication occur? From 1958 to 1965 all fifty states enacted legislation to mandate school age children receive the small pox vaccine (College of Philadelphia). Consequently, by 1971, no small pox cases had been reported in the United States for 20 years. The last known smallpox case in the world was in Somalia in 1977 (CDC 2010). Even though small pox is the only listed eradicated disease, the Carter Foundation has listed six other diseases as having the potential to be eradicated: lymphatic filariasis (Elephantiasis), polio, measles, mumps, rubella, and pork tapeworm. In addition to these previous listed diseases are to date the following diseases which are considered preventable by vaccination: chicken pox, diphtheria, Haemohphilus Influenza type B, Hepatitis A and B, HPV, Influenza, Measles, Meningococcal Disease, Mumps, Pertusis, Pneumonia, Polio, Rotavirus, Rubella, Shingles, Smallpox, Tetanus, Yellow Fever, and STDs (Carter n.d.).
Piddock, Charles. "Winning the War on Polio." Current Health 2 10 2004: 25-7. ProQuest. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.
Fifty-nine years after the vaccine was introduced to the world, the number of cases of outbreaks has dropped 99% and only three countries still remain in an epidemic state with the virus, Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. In 1994, the WHO Region of the Americas was certified polio-free and in in 2013 only406 reported cases were existent in the world, compared to the 350 000+ cases in 1988. (Who, 2014).
...eveloping Country Perspective on Vaccine-associated Paralytic Poliomyelitis." Bulletin of the World Health Organization Jan. 2004: 53-57. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 9 Mar. 2014.
...s and measurement to decrease healthcare- associated infections. American Journal Of Infection Control, pp. S19-S25. doi:10.1016/j.ajic.2012.02.008.
The discovery of the polio vaccine was an important medical and scientific breakthrough because it saved many lives since the 1950s. In the summer of 1916 the great polio epidemic struck the United states. By the 1950s hundreds of thousands of people had been struck by the poliomyelitis. The highest number of cases occurred in 1953 with over 50,000 people infected with the virus.
...f infections acquired during the hospital. Many of these studies have indicated that these infection control interventions will decrease the number of sick or dying patients related to hospital acquired infections and lower the medical cost by decreasing the stay of each patient in the hospital.
In the 1960s, doctors in the United States predicted that infectious diseases were in decline. US surgeon Dr. William H. Stewart told the nation that it had already seen most of the frontiers in the field of contagious disease. Epidemiology seemed destined to become a scientific backwater (Karlen 1995, 3). Although people thought that this particular field was gradually dying, it wasn’t. A lot more of it was destined to come. By the late 1980s, it became clear that people’s initial belief of infectious diseases declining needed to be qualified, as a host of new diseases emerged to infect human beings (Smallman & Brown, 2011).With the current trends, the epidemics and pandemics we have faced have created a very chaotic and unreliable future for mankind. As of today, it has really been difficult to prevent global epidemics and pandemics. Although the cases may be different from one state to another, the challenges we all face are all interconnected in this globalized world.