Family Members or Friends: Catching Polio Without Knowing It
Dr. Bruno’s Original Post:
From The Polio Paradox:
In 5% to 20% of households where poliovirus attacked one family member, another was also stricken. From 1909 to 1955 more than 2,000 family members in over 1,000 households were surveyed in which at least one person had polio. On average if one child in a household became ill he "shared" polio with one other sibling of similar age. Just over half of those who became ill were paralyzed. But others had flu-like symptoms ranging from a fever, sore throat and nausea to a stiff neck and muscle pain. This "minor illness" was caused by the poliovirus but may never have been diagnosed as polio at all, or may have been called "abortive" or "non-paralytic" polio. In three-quarters of the households the first case of polio was paralytic and the second was "non-paralytic."
BOTTOM LINE: There's about a 1-in-5 chance that if you had paralytic polio one of your brothers or sisters had non-paralytic polio and may not have known it.
Here is only one of a few articles from the Encyclopedia of Polio and PPS on this topic: “Polio Suspects and Paralytic vs Non-Paralytic Polio”.
You will find more listed in the Index under the topics Non-Paralytic and Poliovirus.