New Viruses Ready To Replace Polio?

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29776, 20 March 1962, Page 9

New Viruses Ready To Replace Polio?

[By FRANK PUDDICOMBE, N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent] SYDNEY, March 18. Australian medical authorities fear that the defeated polio virus is being replaced by two others with effects just as serious.

The Salk poliomyelitis vaccine is said to have no effect on these two viruses, which have been discovered only recently. The viruses produce symptoms and effects almost identical to poliomyelitis. and are resistant to any known antibiotic drugs. The Sydney “Sun” reported that evidence available suggests the viruses can kill, or leave the patient permanently paralysed. In milder cases, the patient'can recover the use of paralysed limbs. The two new viruses, known as “Echo” and “Coxsackie” are transmitted in the same way as poliomyelitis. Like poliomyelitis, they are entero-viruses and attack the body through the digestive tract.

The “Sun” said that research into the Echo and Coxsackie viruses was going on throughout the world. Ohly extensive laboratory tests could pinpoint the difference between poliomyelitis and the Echo and Coxsackie viruses.

Scientists here now believe that many patients diagnosed as poliomyelitis sufferers might have been victims of Echo or Coxsackie.

Recently a young girl in a New South Wales north coast town was diagnosed as a poliomyelitis case, but when it was learned she had received a full course of Salk vaccine, more tests were made. She was found to be suffering from one of the strains of the Coxsackie virus.

Medical authorities are concerned that Echo and Coxsackie cases will increase and become more virulent as poliomyelitis becomes less of a menace. A medical research worker in Sydney said this week: "We have just about conquered poliomyelitis, but now we have these others poised, ready to strike. Just how many patients we thought were poliomyelitis victims, but were really victims of these other viruses,

we cannot tell, but it is certain many of them weren’t really poliomyelitis victims.” The authority added that it was a world-wide problem, and not one confined to Australia.

In one way, the doctor’s task has been made easier. A patient who has been vaccinated and still shows the symptoms of poliomyelitis, can now be suspected as a victim of the other two viruses.

Meanwhile, scientists say the Echo and Coxsackie viruses are not connected with recent cases in Queensland, in which a number of people who had received full courses of Salk vaccine had still contracted poliomyelitis. Doctors say the Queensland people are victims of a “Type 3 poliomyelitis” which is more virulent in that State than elsewhere. Doctors believe that in these cases, three injections of Salk was not enough to counteract the poliomyelitis virus in massive quantities. Medical authorities are now 7 considering whether a fourth booster injection should be given to provide immunity to all types of poliomyelitis in Queensland.