Polio is a highly infectious viral disease that mainly affects children under 5 years old. It invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis in a matter of hours.

Symptoms and risk:

🦠 Polio spreads person-to-person, mainly through the faecal-oral route or, less often, by contaminated water or food.

🤒 Early symptoms include fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, neck stiffness, and limb pain.

🧑‍🦽 1 in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis, and up to 10% of those affected die when their breathing muscles fail.

💔 Anyone unvaccinated remains at risk.

Key facts:

🔹 There is no cure for polio, it can only be prevented through vaccination.

🔹 As long as one child remains infected, children everywhere are at risk.

🔹 Thanks to global vaccination efforts, wild poliovirus cases have dropped by over 99% since 1988.

💪 A polio-free world means no child will face lifelong paralysis again.

Learn more about polio ➡️ bit.ly/3J5vsfZ