Polio
Polio Playbook
Polio, short for poliomyelitis, is a highly infectious disease caused by poliovirus.
APIC Resources and Tools
Click here to download the APIC Polio Playbook
- Developed by the APIC Emerging Infectious Diseases Task Force to help infection preventionists rapidly activate polio prevention efforts
- The playbook is a concise workflow document that is designed to be user-friendly and operational for busy infection preventionists
About Polio
- Polio is caused by poliovirus, an enterovirus that infects the gastrointestinal tract and can attack the nervous system, sometimes causing paralysis
- There are three serotypes of wild poliovirus (WPV1, WPV2, WPV3), though WPV2 ad WPV3 are now globally eradicated
- The primary mode of transmission is through ingestion of contaminated food or water (fecal-oral route)
- The secondary mode of transmission is through respiratory droplets (oral-oral)
- Poliovirus can survive in wastewater and on surfaces for extended periods, which enables community-level spread, especially in undervaccinated populations
- Incubation Period: 7 to 21 days
- About. 70-75% of infections are asymptomatic or cause mild symptoms
- Paralytic disease occurs in <1% of infections
- Polio was once one of the most feared childhood diseases in the United States, leading to tens of thousands of paralysis cases annually
- The introduction of the injectable vaccine (IPV) in 1955 and the oral vaccine (OPV) in 1961 led to the elimination of polio transmission in the United States by 1979
- Global Eradication efforts have reduced cases by <99%, yet wild poliovirus continues to circulate in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) outbreaks occur where oral vaccine use and low immunity overlap
- Vaccination remains the only effective measure to prevent paralysis and halt transmission
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