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polio vaccine
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Polio vaccine
How did the polio vaccine change the world?
Children with polio and the administration of polio vaccine
Gloved hands draw liquid from a vial into a syringe, overlaid on a digitally colored microscopic image of a virus with round particles in clusters.
Oral polio vaccine Polio vaccine Three line graphs display the dramatic decline in reported cases of diphtheria, polio, and measles in the United States from 1920 to 2019, each showing a sharp drop after the introduction of their respective vaccines. Diphtheria cases fell after 1921, polio after 1955, and measles after 1963, illustrating the impact of mass vaccination programs. An inset highlights an increase in measles cases after 2010.
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Polio vaccine
Polio vaccine A health care worker giving a polio vaccine to a child in Katsina state, Nigeria, 2014.

polio vaccine

medicine
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•History

polio vaccine, preparation of poliovirus given to prevent polio, an infectious disease of the nervous system. The first polio vaccine to be widely used in humans, known as inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) or Salk vaccine, was developed in the early 1950s by American physician Jonas Salk. This vaccine contained killed virus and was given by injection. The large-scale use of IPV began in February 1954, when it was administered to American schoolchildren. In the following...

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