- Marlene Le Roux, a Cape Town polio survivor, shares her 57-year journey of resilience and strength.
- She calls for government support for post-polio patients and highlights the importance of vaccination.
- Despite multiple surgeries and challenges, she continues to inspire through her work at Artscape.
She is known for her bubbly and warm personality, and she strives to promote and make arts more accessible to persons with disabilities.
But Marlene Le Roux has her own dance, a genre she’s performed for 57 years with great difficulty, she calls it a “unique pole-io dance”.
Growing up during apartheid, Le Roux contracted polio at three months old after doctors reportedly refused to administer her the vaccine.
“My mother and grandmother, both upright, elegant seasonal farm and factory workers from Wellington, told me years later how doctors at the clinic for black people and so-called persons of colour dismissed their concerns that something was wrong with me.”
Today, December 3, marks International Day of Persons with Disabilities.
The day emphasises the importance of securing the rights of people with disabilities, so they can participate fully, equally and effectively in society with others, and face no barriers in all aspects of their lives.
Polio
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), over 1,3 billion people experience significant disability, which represents 16% of the global population.
Dr Roelof Krause, a paediatrician and paediatric infectious diseases specialist at Christiaan Barnard Memorial Hospital, describes polio as a highly infectious viral disease which mainly affects young children.
Marlene Le Roux, a Cape Town polio survivor, shares her 57-year journey of resilience and strength. She calls for government support for post-polio patients and highlights the importance of vaccination. Despite multiple surgeries and challenges, she continues to inspire through her work at Artscape.He explains that the virus is transmitted from person to person through the faecal oral route. To a lesser degree, polio can also be transmitted by contaminated water and food. Once ingested, the virus multiples in the intestines and then invades the nervous system where it can lead to paralysis and even death.
“Initial symptoms of polio include fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, stiffness in the neck, and pain in the limbs. In a small proportion of cases, the disease causes paralysis, which is often permanent and irreversible.”
The doctor explains that it is incurable and can only be prevented by vaccination.
“The incidence of polio has dramatically decreased all over the world since the introduction of improved sanitation and hygiene as well as the polio vaccine.
“Currently in South Africa, polio vaccines are administered to babies at birth, six, 10, and 14 weeks of life, and 18 months of age. Government clinics offer these vaccinations for free. Some government clinics also have access to a polio combination vaccine at six years of age.”
Le Roux says: “I got my first calliper (supportive orthopaedic device when I was two years old, along with heavy boots. Again, no one told you how to walk with these devices. It was fall and get up. You carried an entire 2kg on your leg.”
In hospital for a year
She explains that she had her first operation as a five-year-old. “The doctors decided I would be their pilot to lengthen my left polio leg, which was shorter than the right one. They drilled four very long screws right through my leg with a mechanism attached to it to be able to turn the bone every morning (the scars and holes are still visible). I stayed in this hospital for a year.”
She explains that her family could only visit her on occasions as they could not stay with her.
Le Roux adds that she had 11 more operations after that. The most recent one earlier this year.
“For nearly 57 years, I have overloaded the right leg with a calliper weighing 2,5 kg by now, from living my life like all people do, climbing Table Mountain, working and walking daily at my lifeline which is Artscape”
She calls on more support from the government.
“Government must provide the necessary resources for my fellow post-polio sufferers so that all of us can continue to live a dignified life. It is their duty and responsibility! The campaign about polio should not just focus on the eradication of polio, but also on the provision of proper treatment and support for post-polio symptoms that continue after polio treatment.”
Krause says hand hygiene after cleaning a baby’s diaper is important, especially after a baby has received the polio vaccine.
“I mention this as there have been a small number of cases described where the polio vaccine can cause vaccine derived polio infection in a small percentage of individuals. This vaccine-derived virus can be present in a baby’s stool.”
He advised parents who do not wish to have their baby vaccinated to seek medical advice.
Despite the challenges she faced and continue to face Le Roux remains positive about life. “My motto is life owes you nothing. My non-polio trophy leg is now bionic. Before I could walk on my own without assistance, now I’m dancing with crutches, for the rest of my life. My appeal to all is therefore: know your post-polio status, vaccinate your child with the polio drops, empower yourself, turn your polio devices into stilettos. Live your life.”
