Poliomyelitis, commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 75% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe symptoms develop such as headache, neck stiffness, and paresthesia. These symptoms usually pass within one or two weeks. A less common symptom is permanent paralysis, and possible death in extreme cases. Years after recovery, post-polio syndrome may occur, with a slow development of muscle weakness similar to what the person had during the initial infection.
Polio vaccines are vaccines used to prevent poliomyelitis (polio). Two types are used: an inactivated poliovirus given by injection (IPV) and a weakened poliovirus given by mouth (OPV). The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends all children be fully vaccinated against polio. The two vaccines have eliminated polio from most of the world, and reduced the number of cases reported each year from an estimated 350,000 in 1988 to 33 in 2018.
John Franklin Enders was an American biomedical scientist and Nobel Laureate. Enders has been called "The Father of Modern Vaccines."
March of Dimes is a United States nonprofit organization that works to improve the health of mothers and babies. The organization was founded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938, as the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, to combat polio. The name "March of Dimes" was coined by Eddie Cantor. After funding Jonas Salk's polio vaccine, the organization expanded its focus to the prevention of birth defects and infant mortality. In 2005, as preterm birth emerged as the leading cause of death for children worldwide, research and prevention of premature birth became the organization's primary focus.
The oral polio vaccine (OPV) AIDS hypothesis is a now-discredited hypothesis that the AIDS pandemic originated from live polio vaccines prepared in chimpanzee tissue cultures, accidentally contaminated with simian immunodeficiency virus and then administered to up to one million Africans between 1957 and 1960 in experimental mass vaccination campaigns.
Albert Bruce Sabin was a Polish-American medical researcher, best known for developing the oral polio vaccine, which has played a key role in nearly eradicating the disease. In 1969–72, he served as the president of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.
Hilary Koprowski was a Polish virologist and immunologist active in the United States who demonstrated the world's first effective live polio vaccine. He authored or co-authored over 875 scientific papers and co-edited several scientific journals.
Herald Rea Cox (1907–1986) was an American bacteriologist. The bacterial family Coxiellaceae and the genus Coxiella, which include the organism that causes Q fever, are named after him.
The history of polio (poliomyelitis) infections began during prehistory. Although major polio epidemics were unknown before the 20th century, the disease has caused paralysis and death for much of human history. Over millennia, polio survived quietly as an endemic pathogen until the 1900s when major epidemics began to occur in Europe. Soon after, widespread epidemics appeared in the rest of the world. By 1910, frequent epidemics became regular events throughout the developed world primarily in cities during the summer months. At its peak in the 1940s and 1950s, polio would paralyze or kill over half a million people worldwide every year.
David M. Oshinsky is an American historian, director of the Division of Medical Humanities at the NYU School of Medicine, and a professor in the Department of History at New York University.
Isabel Merrick Morgan was an American virologist at Johns Hopkins University, who prepared an experimental vaccine that protected monkeys against polio in a research team with David Bodian and Howard A. Howe. Their research led to the identification of three distinct serotypes of poliovirus, all of which must be incorporated for a vaccine to provide complete immunity from poliomyelitis. Morgan was the first to successfully use a killed-virus for polio inoculation in monkeys. After she married in 1949, she left the field of polio research in part because she was uncomfortable with trials that tested polio vaccines on the nerve tissue of children. She then worked on epidemiological studies on air pollution. Later in life, she was a consultant for studies of cancer therapies at the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute.
David Bodian was an American medical scientist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who worked in polio research. In the early 1940s he helped lay the groundwork for the eventual development of polio vaccines by combining neurological research with the study of the pathogenesis of polio. With his understanding of the disease, he made a series of crucial discoveries that paved the way for the final development of a vaccine by Jonas Salk and later by Albert Sabin. He received the E. Mead Johnson Award in Pediatrics and the Karl Spencer Lashley Award for his work, along with numerous other distinctions.
Mikhail Petrovich Chumakov was a Soviet Russian microbiologist and virologist most famous for conducting pivotal large-scale clinical trials that led to licensing of the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) developed by Albert B. Sabin.
Jonas Edward Salk was an American virologist and medical researcher who developed one of the first successful polio vaccines. He was born in New York City and attended the City College of New York and New York University School of Medicine.
Joseph Louis Melnick was an American epidemiologist who performed breakthrough research on the spread of polio. The New York Times called him "a founder of modern virology".
Polio epidemics were a concern during the summer months for children globally, with records of polio from the Egyptians and Greeks to the 1950s epidemics. Two U.S. virologists, Jonas Salk of the University of Pittsburgh and Albert B. Sabin of the University of Cincinnati emerged as the most prominent among dozens of American researchers on the quest for a polio vaccine.
World Polio Day was established by Rotary International to commemorate the birth of Jonas Salk, who led the first team to develop a vaccine against poliomyelitis. Use of this inactivated poliovirus vaccine and subsequent widespread use of the oral poliovirus vaccine developed by Albert Sabin led to establishment of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) in 1988. Since then, GPEI has reduced polio worldwide by 99 percent.
Julius S. Youngner was an American Distinguished Service Professor in the School of Medicine and Department of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics at University of Pittsburgh responsible for advances necessary for development of a vaccine for poliomyelitis and the first intranasal equine influenza vaccine.
Harry M. Weaver was an American neuroscientist and researcher who made contributions to medical research in the fields of multiple sclerosis, and was the Director of Research at the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis when the polio vaccine was discovered and developed by Jonas Salk. He also served as the Vice President for Research at the American Cancer Society, Vice President for Research and Development at the Schering Corporation, and Director of Research at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
Marina Konstantinovna Voroshilova was a Soviet virologist and corresponding member of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (1969). She is best known for her work on the introduction of vaccines against poliomyelitis, the discovery of non-specific effects of oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV), and developing the concept of beneficial human viruses.
