October is Polio Awareness Month, which aims to create awareness about the disease, as well as reflect on those people who contracted polio during the epidemics and are not living with the late effects of polio. To cap off the month-long celebration on 28 October 2019, everyone is encouraged to wear orange for World Polio Day, which happens to be the birthdate of Jonas Salk, the person who discovered and developed one of the first successful polio vaccines.
World Polio Day aims to increase awareness about polio virus and to encourage further actions to reduce it from spreading. The commemoration of the day also highlights the success of global strategies in reducing the spread of the disease.
What is polio?
For a lot of Australians, polio has been a devastating illness that have impacted people on all aspects of their daily lives. Polio is a contagious viral illness that in its most severe form causes nerve injury leading to paralysis, difficulty breathing and sometimes death. Today, despite a worldwide effort to wipe out polio, polio virus continues to affect children and adults in parts of Asia and Africa.
The virus usually enters the environment in the feces of someone who is infected. In areas with poor sanitation, the virus easily spreads from feces into the water supply, or, by touch, into food. In addition, because polio is so contagious, direct contact with a person infected with the virus can cause polio.
About Polio Australia
World Polio Day in Australia is usually spearheaded by an organisation called Polio Australia. Established in 1991, the organisation is committed to standardising quality polio information and service provision across Australia for polio survivors. Their vision is that all polio survivors in Australia have access to appropriate health care and the support required to maintain independence and make informed life choices. Among the objectives of Polio Australia include:
- Educate and inform polio survivors, their families and carers, and the community at large about the late effects of polio.
- Provide information, education and training to General Practitioners and a range of medical specialists and other health professionals to improve the diagnosis and management of the late effects of polio.
- Facilitate the provision of appropriate and consistent health, disability and aged care support services across all states and territories to improve the treatment and management of the late effects of polio.
- Provide outreach to culturally and linguistically diverse and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander polio survivors to ensure their diverse needs are being met in a culturally appropriate way.
- Advise governments on policy development and programs in relation to the late effects of polio.
- Stimulate research into the late effects of polio.
- Assist the state Networks to support polio survivors and their families, friends and carers at the local level.
- Facilitate and encourage the co-ordination and further development of activities within and between the state Networks.
- Support and promote polio immunisation at a national level, and provide assistance to the state Networks to do so at the local level.
For more information about polio and Polio Australia, check out their website polioaustralia.org.au. You can also go to thier website if you want to be involved with Polio Awareness Month and World Polio Day 2019.
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