1952·3·27 The first polio vaccine was successfully developed

Poliomyelitis (commonly known as poliomyelitis) was once one of the most serious threats faced by mankind. The polio virus is a neurotropic virus that mainly invades the motor nerve cells of the central nervous system, causing the related muscles to lose nerve regulation and atrophy. Most patients are children aged 1 to 6 years old. Even if the patient survives, he or she will still be left with a permanent mark - disability. However, the most frightening thing about polio is that there is no sign before the onset of the disease, and it is difficult to determine who has the disease. In the early stage of the disease, the patient will only have cold symptoms such as fever, sore throat, and runny nose, which makes many parents mistakenly think that this is a common cold. But by the time the fever subsides, the child has already developed limb paralysis. In severe cases, respiratory muscle paralysis may also occur, causing suffocation and death.

On March 27, 1952, Dr. Jonas Salk, a pathologist at the University of Pittsburgh, announced the development of a new vaccine against polio. In the following year, nearly one million children around the world took the polio vaccine, and people now had a basic and effective drug to prevent and treat this paralytic disease.

◆New vaccine experiment successful

The clinical features of polio were first described by British physician John Underwood in 1789. It became increasingly prevalent with urbanization caused by the Industrial Revolution.

In 1916, the first polio pandemic broke out in New York, USA. Among more than 9,000 cases, the vast majority were children, and 2,343 died. Every summer after that, the epidemic broke out like clockwork, and the number of patients continued to increase. By 1952, the number of cases reported in the United States reached 57,628. Poliomyelitis has become the biggest threat to public health in the United States since World War II, and the second biggest fear after nuclear war. Because there is no specific medicine, people can only hope for the development of a polio vaccine.

Since then, it has frequently broken out. For the sake of children's tomorrow, in 1938, President Franklin Roosevelt, the world's most famous polio patient, signed an agreement to establish the National Polio Foundation to treat patients and provide research funds for the development of vaccines.

In 1947, Jonas Salk of the University of Pittsburgh began to work on the development of a polio virus vaccine. He held a new view that was different from the traditional view, that is, it was too risky to allow live viruses to enter the human body, and that it might be possible to kill the virus while retaining its ability to trigger an immune response. This was a shocking view because all vaccines in the past were made from weakened viruses. These remarks caused him to suffer a lot of criticism and were despised by many of his peers.

However, he did not give up his point of view. In 1952, Salk explored a new method: he used formaldehyde to inactivate the polio virus cultured in monkey nerve cells. This method made the virus lose all its activity, but after injecting it into the host, it could still trigger an immune response in the host and produce immunity. After a series of difficult experiments, he finally convinced the public and won everyone's trust.

With the efforts of Sokel and the help of governments of various countries, the vaccine was widely spread, which greatly improved the situation of polio. From then on, people were no longer afraid of polio.

◆Roosevelt and his foundation

The damage caused by polio virus is mainly concentrated in children, so it is also called polio, but this is not an absolute concept. Roosevelt is one of the adults who suffered deeply from it.

In the summer of 1921, polio swept across the United States. The sudden disaster terrified the residents of New York. A few days later, Roosevelt suddenly felt weak in his legs and unwell all over.

On August 25, the famous American doctor Robert Williamson Lovett arrived at Roosevelt's residence and diagnosed him with polio. After treating him for a period of time, Dr. Lovett also told Roosevelt a bad news: his leg paralysis would never be cured.

In 1925, when Roosevelt heard that a small hot spring in Georgia could treat polio, he came to the hot spring for treatment. After a few months of mineral baths, he was able to move in the water and then stand on land. In 1926, he bought the hot spring and renovated it to treat polio patients.

These activities of Roosevelt greatly improved his popularity among voters. In 1933, Roosevelt was elected president.

In order to celebrate Roosevelt's election as president, the United States held a large-scale celebration, one of which was to donate money for polio. People wrote letters to the president and put donations in envelopes. From then on, a large number of sacks of mail were continuously transported to the White House.

In a few months, a total of 2.86 million letters were received, with donations of about $300,000. When Roosevelt was re-elected president in 1936, he received another $1 million. In the following years, residents' donations increased. For this reason, the United States established the National Poliomyelitis Foundation, which specifically allocated funds for research and treatment of polio.

◆China’s “most delicious vaccine”

In China, you may not know much about polio, but you must have heard of a small white sugar pill known as the "best vaccine." The small sugar pill that tastes sweet and makes people linger after eating it is the polio vaccine.

It is this inconspicuous little sugar pill that has successfully reduced the incidence of polio in my country and made a huge contribution to the complete eradication of polio. In 1958, Gu Fangzuo, the "father of sugar pills", isolated the polio virus for the first time in my country, providing a scientific basis for the formulation of immunization programs.

In 1959, when Gu Fangzuo and his team went to the Soviet Union to study the situation of polio vaccines, the two factions of "dead" and "live" vaccines held their own opinions and were arguing. Gu Fangzuo judged that my country could not take the dead vaccine technology route, but had to take the live vaccine technology route.

In December 1959, with the approval of the Ministry of Health, the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and the Institute of Biological Products of the Ministry of Health negotiated and established a polio live vaccine research collaboration group, with Gu Fangzuo as the group leader. Facts have proved that Gu Fangzuo's judgment at the time was correct. In 1960, after the first batch of "polio" live vaccine trial production was successful, the country officially launched the war to eliminate polio. In December of that year, the first batch of 5 million doses of vaccine was successfully produced and promoted in 11 cities across the country.

But at this time, another problem appeared in front of Gu Fangzhou: How to make a vaccine that is easy to transport and children love to eat? After more than a year of research and testing, Gu Fangzhou and others finally successfully developed a sugar pill vaccine and passed scientific tests. Soon, the polio sugar pill vaccine came out.

In 2000, the "China Polio Eradication Report Signing Ceremony" was held at the Ministry of Health. 74-year-old Gu Fangzuo signed his name as a representative, and my country became a polio-free country. According to experts, the "sugar pill vaccine" (tOPV) contains three serotypes of vaccine strains. The type II component in the "sugar pill vaccine" may cause vaccine-derived polio virus cases and cause an outbreak. Therefore, the polio vaccine sugar pill has been discontinued.