LIMA (AlertNet) - At 60, Marilú Montero is a beautiful woman. Her photo album records an active life. She toured Latin America as a singer, worked as a nurse with the Red Cross and for years was branch manager of a Peruvian airline. She has been to 52 countries, ridden on horses, camels and utility vehicles, worn high heels and has three grown-up children.

From the photos, noone would guess that Montero had polio at the age of six months. In 1947, she was taken to the Warm Springs Foundation Hospital in Georgia, Atlanta. The Georgia Warm Springs Foundation was established by former U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, who was himself a paraplegic after contracting polio at the age of 39.

When she was 10, Montero spent two months encased in plaster from her legs to her shoulders. Afterwards, she went through a long rehabilitation process to learn to walk again.

Montero's mother -- Victoria Graña, a Lima socialite -- founded the San Juan de Dios Clinic Home, the country's first specialised polio centre for children from low-income homes.

After a life full of action and applause, Montero had virtually forgotten the events that marked her childhood, but several years ago she began to feel aches in her bones, weak muscles and a lack of energy. "It must be age," she said to herself. It did not occur to her that it could have any connection with polio.

Four years ago, Montero was tired of hearing doctors saying over and over again that it was arthritis, or osteoporosis, or menopause-related. By chance, she called a friend who had been in hospital with her as a child and they were both surprised to discover that they had the same symptoms.

BACK TO BRACES

Montero's friend had been forced to wear leg braces again after 50 years of managing without them.

They spoke to doctors in the United States and found out that what they were going through was nothing to do with age, but was in fact Post Polio Syndrome.

Emulating her mother half a century earlier, Montero thought of the thousands of Peruvian survivors of polio epidemics in the 1950s and 1960s. She thought about the need to track them down and bring them together to warn them to watch out for symptoms and avoid incorrect diagnoses.

Montero set out on a mission to talk about post polio syndrome with doctors, representatives of public and private health institutions and disabled people's organisations.

About a month ago, Peruvian television broadcast a programme about several people in their 50s who recovered from polio as children but were experiencing health problems again decades later. Although post polio syndrome has been recognised in the international medical world for at least 15 years, this was the first time the subject had received any significant attention in Peru.

Montero said: "I read everything I could and there are still doctors who don't take me seriously. They say that polio has been wiped out, that it doesn't appear in statistics any more. I explained that it's not polio, it's a syndrome that affects people who have had polio, decades later. We need specialist attention and there are a lot of us."

Montero is now president of the Peruvian Polo Survivors Association. The vice-president and committee members are also survivors of childhood polio.

The association has permission from the Peruvian Social Security Institution to carry out an awareness campaign among health staff to increase detection and appropriate treatment for post polio syndrome patients.

It has located 21 groups of disabled activists in the capital and other regions.

NO FUNDS FOR PATIENTS

"There is no organisation raising funds for them," said Montero. She said that there were no tax incentives for companies or individuals to make donations.

The organisation is trying to persuade the Ministry of Health to give backing to treatment centres, since insurance schemes treat post polio as a pre-existing condition and do not provide cover for it.

Dr Gaston Barnechea, specialist in orthopedics and traumatology, told AlertNet that figures were not available, but he estimated that 60,000 Peruvians contracted polio in the 1960s and 1970s. About 40,000 of these would be alive today, he guessed and about 25,000 would probably experience Post Polio Syndrome.

Barnechea said that it was important to include diagnosis of Post polio syndrome in normal medical practice. He said that in the past two years about 300 polio patients had been treated at the Guillermo Almenara Hospital, where he works.

Barnechea said that common symptoms of the syndrome were fatigue, muscular weakness, pain in joints and could include difficulty in breathing and digestion the diaphragm was affected.

He said it could be difficult for patients to accept necessary changes to their lives as a result of post polio syndrome, such as using crutches, walking sticks or wheelchairs, since resting affected muscles was a fundamental part of treatment.

"It can lead to progressive disability if it's not treated in time," said Barnechea. However, he said: "This is not intended to make people panic. On the contrary, it is a warning that adequate diagnosis and treatment will prevent more serious problems."