• Polio is caused by any one of three Polio viruses.
  
  
• Polio is a very contagious virus.
  
  

• 90% of the cases, mostly in children, recover within a few weeks. Polio strikes adults more severely.
  
  
• The virus enters your body through the mouth, invades through the throat and digestive system, and eventually spreads throughout your immune system through your bloodstream. You can catch it by being exposed to infected saliva or other bodily fluids.
  
  
• Polio starts with flu like symptoms: fever, headache, stiff neck and back, muscle weakness, and having difficulty swallowing. If the virus enters the bloodstream and into the central nervous system, and affects the nerve cells of your brainstem or spinal cord, paralysis sets in.
  
  
• Many children were placed in Iron Lungs to help them breath.
  
  
• Polio is a very serious disease: but, with the development of the vaccine, many areas of the world are now Polio free.
  
  
• Even today, without proper medical treatment, Poliomyelitis can be fatal. About 2-5% of all children with paralytic forms of Polio die, and about 15% of all adults.

Archival display compiled by the Glenbow Museum, Alberta Children’s Hospital and Southern Alberta Post Polio Support Society, 1997

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