polio

Introduction & Top Questions
Course of disease
Treatment and vaccination
Polio through history
- From minor outbreaks to epidemics
- The age of the vaccine
- A global campaign

References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics

Images & Videos

How did the polio vaccine change the world?

Jonas Salk, wearing a white lab coat, stands in a laboratory smiling and holding up a bottle of red liquid, with more bottles on the counter beside him.

Children with polio and the administration of polio vaccine

A child wearing a brace on a leg that has been affected by polio.

Three line graphs display the dramatic decline in reported cases of diphtheria, polio, and measles in the United States from 1920 to 2019, each showing a sharp drop after the introduction of their respective vaccines. Diphtheria cases fell after 1921, polio after 1955, and measles after 1963, illustrating the impact of mass vaccination programs. An inset highlights an increase in measles cases after 2010.

Infographic showing estimated lives saved by childhood vaccinations worldwide from 1974 to 2024, with syringe-shaped bars for each disease. Measles tops the list at 93.71 million lives saved, followed by tetanus, whooping cough, and others, for a total of 153.84 million lives saved.

At a Glance

poliomyelitis summary

Quizzes

Diseases, Disorders, and More: A Medical Quiz

44 Questions from Britannica’s Most Popular Health and Medicine Quizzes

Related Questions

How can polio interfere with breathing and swallowing?
How can vaccine-derived poliovirus arise from oral polio vaccine?
How did Carl Kling find evidence that healthy carriers could spread poliovirus?
How did Ivar Wickman show that people without paralysis could spread poliovirus?
How did conflict and poverty make polio eradication more difficult?
How did mass vaccination campaigns eliminate indigenous polio from the Western Hemisphere?
How did travelers contribute to polio outbreaks in Tajikistan and China in 2010 and 2011?
How do antibodies protect a person after a poliovirus infection?
How does poliovirus reach the brain and spinal cord?
How does poliovirus spread from one person to another?
How does the inactivated poliovirus vaccine differ from the oral poliovirus vaccine?
How does the inactivated poliovirus vaccine produce protection against polio?
How does the oral poliovirus vaccine strengthen immunity in the intestine?
How long after exposure to poliovirus can symptoms begin?
How long can an infected person shed poliovirus in the throat and feces?
How many children took part in the Francis Field Trial of the Salk vaccine?
How many paralytic polio cases were recorded in the United States in 1952?
How often does poliovirus infection lead to paralysis?
How were iron lungs used to help people with paralytic polio breathe?
What are the three serotypes of wild poliovirus?
What is post-polio syndrome?
When can post-polio syndrome develop after an earlier polio infection?
When was the Salk polio vaccine licensed for public use in the United States?
When were the first recorded polio epidemics in Norway and Sweden?
Which early symptoms can occur during a polio infection?
Which poliovirus serotypes have been eradicated?
Which symptoms can occur in post-polio syndrome?
Who developed the first widely used inactivated polio vaccine?
Who first clearly described paralytic disease in infants in 1789?
Why can a monovalent oral polio vaccine be more effective against one serotype than a trivalent vaccine?
Why can paralysis caused by destroyed motor neurons be permanent?
Why can paralytic polio be fatal?
Why can the oral poliovirus vaccine indirectly protect other people in a community?
Why did polio epidemics become more common after sanitation improved in Europe and North America?
Why did the United States switch from oral polio vaccine to inactivated polio vaccine in 2000?
Why do large pilgrimages to Mecca create challenges for preventing the international spread of polio?
Why does poliovirus cause muscle weakness or flaccid paralysis?
Why might post-polio syndrome cause new weakness decades after recovery?
Why was growing poliovirus in tissue culture an important step toward creating a vaccine?
Why were polio epidemics especially feared in the United States during the 1940s and early 1950s?
What is polio?
How is polio transmitted?
What are the types of polio vaccines?
What is post-polio syndrome?
How did polio epidemics become widespread?
What is COVID-19?
How does COVID-19 spread?
What symptoms can COVID-19 cause?
How can the risk of COVID-19 transmission be reduced?
Why have COVID-19 variants helped COVID-19 continue to spread?

Health & Medicine Conditions & Diseases Infectious Diseases

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External Websites

World Health Organization - Poliomyelitis (polio)
WebMD - Polio
Verywell Health - What is Polio?
The Nemours Foundation - For Parents - Polio
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - Polio
National Center for Biotechnology Information - PubMed Central - Poliomyelitis
MedlinePlus - Polio
MSD Manual - Professional Version - Polio
Cleveland Clinic - Polio
Mayo Clinic - Polio

Britannica Websites

Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.

polio - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
polio - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

polio

viral disease

Also known as: Heine-Medin disease, acute anterior poliomyelitis, infantile paralysis, poliomyelitis(Show More)

Written and fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....

Britannica Editors

History

polio, acute viral infectious disease of the nervous system that usually begins with general symptoms such as fever, headache, nausea, fatigue, and muscle pains and spasms and is sometimes followed by a more serious and permanent paralysis of muscles in one or more limbs, the throat, or the chest. The paralysis commonly associated with polio actually affects fewer than 1 percent of infected persons. For those who become infected, there is no cure; however, between...

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