Polio Vaccine: What You Need to Know [2025]

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Polio Vaccine: What You Need to Know [2025] [English] ; Vaccine Information Statement: Polio Vaccine: What You Need to Know [2025]
• Corporate Authors:
  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.)
• Description:
  A VIS or Vaccine Information Statement is a document, produced by CDC, that informs vaccine recipients – or their parents or legal representatives – about the benefits and risks of a vaccine they are receiving. All vaccine providers, public or private, are required by the National Vaccine Childhood Injury Act (NCVIA – 42 U.S.C. § 300aa-26) to give the appropriate VIS to the patient (or parent or legal representative) prior to every dose of specific vaccines. The appropriate VIS must be given prior to the vaccination, and must be given prior to each dose of a multi-dose series. It must be given regardless of the age of the recipient: from https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/about-vis/index.html.
  
  VISs have been translated into about 40 languages. These can be found on the website of CDC's partner, https://www.immunize.org/vis/. Not every VIS has been translated into every language.
  
  Why get vaccinated? Polio vaccine can prevent polio. Polio (or poliomyelitis) is a disabling and life-threatening disease caused by poliovirus, which can infect a person’s spinal cord, leading to paralysis. Most people infected with poliovirus have no symptoms, and many recover without complications. Some people will experience sore throat, fever, tiredness, nausea, headache, or stomach pain. A smaller group of people will develop more serious symptoms that affect the brain and spinal cord paresthesia (feeling of pins and needles in the legs), meningitis (infection of the covering of the spinal cord and/or brain), or paralysis (can’t move parts of the body) or weakness in the arms, legs, or both. Paralysis is the most severe symptom associated with polio because it can lead to permanent disability and death. Improvements in limb paralysis can occur, but in some people new muscle pain and weakness may develop 15 to 40 years later. This is called “post-polio syndrome.” Polio has been eliminated from the United States, but it still occurs in other parts of the world. The best way to protect yourself and keep the United States polio-free is to maintain high immunity (protection) in the population against polio through vaccination.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Poliomyelitis Poliomyelitis / Prevention & Control Poliovirus Poliovirus Vaccines Poliovirus Vaccines / Adverse Effects Vaccines
• Keywords:
  Polio
• Series:
  Vaccine Information Statement
• Subseries:
  Polio Vaccine
• Publisher:
  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (U.S.)
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Fact Sheet ; Patient Education Handout
• Place as Subject:
  United States
• Rights:
  Public Domain
• Topic:
  Diseases & Conditions
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  2 pdf pages
• Collection(s):
  Infectious Diseases
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:40f948a2cc1eb8a2a11b29a179d0346efdb54916bb74882d5d533d611f1e9c723b02145c07399814887a746e04788e992adaa846a58feb5476e358b821c89db3
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/253009/cdc_253009_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 219.80 KB ]