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Who developed the vaccination against polio |
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Polio, which is the result of the PolioVirus, has a long history of death and destruction. It has always been a dreaded disease especially in childhood and epidemics have regularly surfaced in human history, with the largest outbreak being in the first half of the twentieth century. Countries like the United States of America reported nearly 60,000 cases of polio in 1952 alone. Across the world, polio left thousands of children and adults paralysed and many more dead. This led to a race amongst scientists to see who developed the vaccination against polio first and put a stop to anymore damage. Today we have 2 vaccinations that are used against the poliovirus. So who developed the vaccinations against polio? The credit goes to 2 scientists who developed different types of the vaccination some years apart. The first vaccination was developed in 1952 at the University of Pittsburgh by Jonas Salk. Salk conducted tests on volunteers including his family, staff and himself. Following this, in 1954, nearly 2 million children, known as the Polio Pioneers, were used to test the polio vaccine developed by Salk. In 1955, the vaccination developed by Salk was reported to be effective in creating immunity against
the poliovirus. Jonas Salk's vaccination against polio is called the Inactivated Polio Vaccine (IPV). The vaccine introduces an inactive strain of the poliovirus which has the ability to trigger an immune reaction in the body and has the advantage of avoiding paralysis due to the vaccine. However, the IPV offers minimal immunity inside the intestines and thus, there is the continued risk of spreading the infection through fecal matter. Salk's vaccination helped in controlling the spread of polio to a very large extent and was the only vaccination available until the second vaccination was developed. So who developed the second vaccination against polio? Albert Sabin developed the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) in 1957. This vaccination was developed in response to the drawback of the IPV, namely, being unable to control the initial contraction in the intestines and stop the infection spreading. In developing the OPV, Sabin used an attenuated poliovirus which replicated in the gut. Sabin's vaccine had the advantage of being easy to administer (orally) and a large population could be vaccinated. It was also more long lasting than the IPV which required booster shots. Sabin tested his vaccine on children in various countries including Russia, Sweden, Holland, Mexico etc. with the help of WHO. The US accepted the oral vaccine in 1961. Although it was Jonas Salk who developed the vaccination against polio first, and it was his IPV that helped in controlling the incidence of polio, it was Albert Sabin's OPV that helped eliminate polio from the United States of America and many other countries. Childhood Vaccination
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