“In short most of us think of sleep as a passive and relatively constant and unchanging process. In fact, sleep is a very active state. Our bodies move frequently, as we roll about during the night, and, more importantly to the psychologist, our brain activity is even more varied than it is during the normal waking state.”
Dement, W.C. (1978). Some must watch while some must sleep. New York: W.W. Norton.
Pinel, J.P.J. (1992). Biopsychology. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
“If you have norovirus, don’t prepare food for at least two to three days after you feel better. Try not to eat food that has been prepared by someone else who is sick.”
WEB MD.
Norovirus is a very contagious virus that can infect anyone. You can get it from an infected person, contaminated food or water, or by touching contaminated surfaces. The virus causes your stomach or intestines or both to get inflamed. This leads you to have stomach pain, nausea, and diarrhea and to throw up. These symptoms can be serious for some people, especially young children and older adults.
Anyone can be infected with norovirus and get sick. Also, you can have norovirus illness many times in your life. Norovirus illness can be serious, especially for young children and older adults.
Norovirus is the most common cause of acute gastroenteritis in the United States. Each year, it causes 19-21 million illnesses and contributes to 56,000-71,000 hospitalizations and 570-800 deaths. Norovirus is also the most common cause of foodborne-disease outbreaks in the United States.
The best way to help prevent norovirus is to practice proper hand washing and general cleanliness.
Norovirus can be found in your stool (feces) even before you start feeling sick. The virus can stay in your stool for 2 weeks or more after you feel better.
You are most contagious
“Hepatitis types B and C lead to chronic disease in hundreds of millions of people and, together, are the most common cause of liver cirrhosis and cancer.”
WHO World Health Organization
“According to some studies, however, up to almost half the people who had polio at a young age may experience certain effects of the disease many years later — post-polio syndrome.”
MAYO CLINIC
“The words polio (grey) and myelon (marrow, indicating the spinal cord) are derived from the Greek. It is the effect of poliomyelitis virus on the spinal cord that leads to the classic manifestation of paralysis.”
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
A virus is a small, infectious agent that is made up of a core of genetic material surrounded by a shell of protein. The genetic material (which is responsible for carrying forward hereditary traits from parent cells to offspring) may be either deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) or ribonucleic acid (RNA). Viruses are at the borderline between living and nonliving matter. When they infect a host cell, they are able to carry on many life functions, such as metabolism and reproduction. But outside a host cell, they are as inactive as a grain of sand.
Viruses cause disease by infecting a host cell and taking over its biochemical functions. In order to produce new copies of itself, a virus must use the host cell’s reproductive “machinery.” The newly made viruses then leave the host cell, sometimes killing it in the process, and proceed to infect other cells within the organism.
Viruses can infect plants, bacteria, and animals. The tobacco mosaic virus, one of the most studied of all viruses, infects tobacco plants. Animal viruses cause a variety of diseases, including AIDS (acquired immuno deficiency syndrome), hepatitis, chicken pox, smallpox, polio, measles, rabies, the common cold, and some forms of cancer.
Viruses that affect bacteria are called bacteriophages, or simply phages (pronounced FAY-jez). Phages are of special importance due to the susceptibility of the viruse transmission. The disease Polio (poliomyelitis) in time will be transmitted throughout the bloodstream and the highly viral infectious disease is now spreading in the body.
Poliomyelitis (POLIO) is a viral disease. There are three types of poliovirus and many strains of each type. The virus enters through the mouth and multiplies in the throat and gastrointestinal tract, then moves into the bloodstream and is carried to the central nervous system where it replicates and destroys the motor neuron cells. Motor neurons control the muscles for swallowing, circulation, respiration, and the trunk, arms, and legs.
Human nerve cells have a protruding protein structure on their surface whose precise function is unknown. When poliovirus encounters the nerve cells, the protruding receptors attach to the virus particle, and infection begins. Once inside the cell, the virus hijacks the cell’s assembly process, and makes thousands of copies of itself in hours. The virus kills the cell and then spreads to infect other cells.
A virus is a small, infectious agent that is made up of a core of genetic material surrounded by a shell of protein. The genetic material (which is responsible for carrying forward hereditary traits from parent cells to offspring) may be either deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) or ribonucleic acid (RNA). Viruses are at the borderline between living and nonliving matter. When they infect a host cell, they are able to carry on many life functions, such as metabolism and reproduction. But outside a host cell, they are as inactive as a grain of sand.
How it is gets into the human body:
Polio is spread through person-to-person contact. When a child is infected with wild poliovirus, the virus enters the body through the mouth and multiplies in the intestine. It is then shed into the environment through the faeces where it can spread rapidly through a community, especially in situations of poor hygiene and sanitation. If a sufficient number of children are fully immunized against polio, the virus is unable to find susceptible children to infect, and dies out. Young children who are not yet toilet-trained are a ready source of transmission, regardless of their environment. Polio can be spread when food or drink is contaminated by faeces. There is also evidence that flies can passively transfer poliovirus from faeces to food. Most people infected with the poliovirus have no signs of illness and are never aware they have been infected. These symptomless people carry the virus in their intestines and can “silently” spread the infection to thousands of others before the first case of polio paralysis emerges. For this reason, WHO considers a single confirmed case of polio paralysis to be evidence of an epidemic – particularly in countries where very few cases occur.
Most infected people (90%) have no symptoms or very mild symptoms and usually go unrecognized. In others, initial symptoms include fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, stiffness in the neck and pain in the limbs.
Poliomyelitis (POLIO) is a viral disease. There are three types of poliovirus and many strains of each type. The virus enters through the mouth and multiplies in the throat and gastrointestinal tract, then moves into the bloodstream and is carried to the central nervous system where it replicates and destroys the motor neuron cells. Motor neurons control the muscles for swallowing, circulation, respiration, and the trunk, arms, and legs.
Human nerve cells have a protruding protein structure on their surface whose precise function is unknown. When poliovirus encounters the nerve cells, the protruding receptors attach to the virus particle, and infection begins. Once inside the cell, the virus hijacks the cell’s assembly process, and makes thousands of copies of itself in hours. The virus kills the cell and then spreads to infect other cells.
Polio is spread through person-to-person contact. When a child is infected with wild poliovirus, the virus enters the body through the mouth and multiplies in the intestine. It is then shed into the environment through the faeces where it can spread rapidly through a community, especially in situations of poor hygiene and sanitation. If a sufficient number of children are fully immunized against polio, the virus is unable to find susceptible children to infect, and dies out. Young children who are not yet toilet-trained are a ready source of transmission, regardless of their environment. Polio can be spread when food or drink is contaminated by faeces. There is also evidence that flies can passively transfer poliovirus from faeces to food. Most people infected with the poliovirus have no signs of illness and are never aware they have been infected. These symptomless people carry the virus in their intestines and can “silently” spread the infection to thousands of others before the first case of polio paralysis emerges. For this reason, WHO considers a single confirmed case of polio paralysis to be evidence of an epidemic – particularly in countries where very few cases occur.
Most infected people (90%) have no symptoms or very mild symptoms and usually go unrecognized. In others, initial symptoms include fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, stiffness in the neck and pain in the limbs.
TYPES:
One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis, usually in the legs. This is caused by the virus entering the blood stream and invading the central nervous system. As it multiplies, the virus destroys the nerve cells that activate muscles. The affected muscles are no longer functional and the limb becomes floppy and lifeless – a condition known AFP = Acute Flaccid Paralysis.
Know all cases of AFP among children under fifteen years old are reported and tested for poliovirus within 48 hours of onset.
All cases of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) among children under fifteen years of age are reported and tested for poliovirus within 48 hours of onset.
More extensive paralysis, involving the trunk and muscles of the thorax and abdomen, can result in quadriplegia. In the most severe cases (bulbar polio), poliovirus attacks the nerve cells of the brain stem, reducing breathing capacity and causing difficulty in swallowing and speaking. Among those paralysed, 5% to 10% die when their breathing muscles become immobilized.
No one knows why only a small percentage of infections lead to paralysis. Several key risk factors have been identified as increasing the likelihood of paralysis in a person infected with polio. These include:
There is no cure for polio, only treatment to alleviate the symptoms. Heat and physical therapy is used to stimulate the muscles and antispasmodic drugs are given to relax the muscles. While this can improve mobility, it cannot unfortunately reverse permanent polio paralysis.
Polio can be prevented through immunization. Polio vaccine, given multiple times, almost always protects a child for life.
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