Polio terrified parents for generations, paralysed hundreds of thousands of people a year. There was no cure. Swimming pools closed in summer. Children ended up in leg braces or iron lungs.
Then came Jonas Salk’s vaccine in 1955, and Albert Sabin’s oral version soon after.
Mass vaccination did the rest. Alongside rapid response to outbreaks and surveillance.
Two of the three types of wild poliovirus have now been eradicated. The last pockets of the third survive only in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
We’re on the brink of erasing a disease from the planet. One of humanity’s oldest enemies is now close to defeat.
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