Quinn Resolution Makes April Polio Awareness Month

Promoting awareness and understanding of the life-time disabilities for polio victims, polio survivors and their families, Rep. Marguerite Quinn (R-Bucks) authored House Resolution 240, making April Polio Awareness Month in Pennsylvania. The resolution was unanimously passed by the House today.

 “Anyone who is more than 50 years old is likely to remember the terror of polio,” Quinn said. “It is a crippling, contagious disease which causes paralysis and confines patients to an iron lung—sometimes for years—just to breathe.”

 

April 12 marked 60 years since Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine was launched, which enabled children to be protected against polio for the first time. Within a few years, polio virtually disappeared. Polio was declared eradicated in the United States in 1979, yet is still present in some impoverished countries, mostly due to lack of vaccination.

 

“While polio is no longer present in America, we are still vulnerable to infection by an imported poliovirus or by traveling internationally to affected areas. Therefore, we must remember the debilitating effects the preventable virus has and continue to be vaccinated,” Quinn said.

 

For more information on Quinn’s legislative goals, visit RepQuinn.net or Facebook.com/RepQuinn.