Children with polio and the administration of polio vaccine
Archival footage showing children with polio, Jonas Salk giving injections of vaccine, and vials of vaccine being produced at the start of the successful effort to reduce the spread of polio in the United States.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
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Transcript
NARRATOR: The polio virus attacks certain kinds of nerve cells, and for hundreds of years it killed and crippled, especially children.
By 1952 Dr. Jonas Salk and his research team at the University of Pittsburgh had developed a killed-virus vaccine against polio. The effort to eradicate the disease started small, with Dr. Salk and his team immunizing a few thousand students in the Pittsburgh area. But soon it became a nationwide mobilization to protect every child against the polio threat. Salk's vaccine and the live polio vaccine developed later by Albert Sabin, were effective in controlling the viral disease.
By 1952 Dr. Jonas Salk and his research team at the University of Pittsburgh had developed a killed-virus vaccine against polio. The effort to eradicate the disease started small, with Dr. Salk and his team immunizing a few thousand students in the Pittsburgh area. But soon it became a nationwide mobilization to protect every child against the polio threat. Salk's vaccine and the live polio vaccine developed later by Albert Sabin, were effective in controlling the viral disease.