Polio Vaccine was found in 1953 by a doctor named Jonas Salk to cure the virus “Poliomyelitis”. Polio attacks the nerve cells and sometimes the central nervous system, causing muscle wasting, paralysis, and even death. Polio is caused by the poliovirus, a highly contagious virus specific to humans. The virus usually enters the environment in the feces of someone who is infected. From this outbreak, many people including children have suffered severe injuries. A 1916 polio epidemic in the United States killed 6,000 people and paralyzed 27,000 more. In the early 1950’s there were more than 25,000 cases of polio reported each year. Polio vaccination was begun in 1955. By 1960 the number of reported cases had dropped to about …show more content…
He started to investigate the polio virus. To start with, he had to sort the 125 strains of the virus and he found that they fell into three basic types. One of the hardest things about working with poliovirus was manufacturing enough to experiment with and to make vaccine production practical (PBS). Eventually researchers learned that vaccines work by fooling the body’s immune system into producing antibodies even though there is no disease. Jonas Salk used this knowledge to create two different kinds of polio vaccines.
Polio vaccines give lifelong immunity by two ways, by immunization and natural infection with the virus. (Polio Vaccines) There are two vaccines: the oral polio vaccine and the inactivated polio vaccine. “The oral polio vaccine was invented by Albert Sabin in 1961.” (Polio Vaccines) It is a weakened, live virus, which can be taken orally. This vaccine produces antibodies in the blood to fight the virus.
Polio has been eliminated from the United States. But the disease is still common in some parts of the world. It would only take one person infected with polio virus coming from another country to bring the disease back here if we were not protected by vaccine. “If the effort to eliminate the disease from the world is successful, some day we won’t need polio vaccine. Until then, we need to keep getting everyone vaccinated”