Illness is a Life Sentence

Angela Crompton - The Marlborough Express

September 29, 2014

Kiwi parents who question the need to vaccinate their children need to know that the crippling disease poliomyelitis, commonly known as polio, is ''just a plane ride away''.

Few New Zealanders have firsthand knowledge of the paralytic, sometimes fatal virus because it was last contracted in this country in 1962.

But the World Heath Organization warns the crippling disease could be making a comeback.

Retired schoolteacher Susan Kerr in Picton read a few years ago that one in four New Zealand children have not completed their polio immunisation.

She has lived with its effects since 1956 when a polio epidemic swept through Britain. Nearly 68, she is now affected by post-polio syndrome, experiencing a range of new problems, from deteriorating muscle function, breathing and speech problems to unusual fatigue.

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