HOMELAND SECURITY POLICY INSTITUTE GROUP

An unfinished victory
By wire services
Published April 12, 2005

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[Getty Images]
A boy is given a drop of polio vaccine Sunday in Rimin Gado, Nigeria, during a nationwide innoculation of children under 5.

[AP/University of Pittsburgh photo: 1954]
Jonas Salk, right, the Pittsburgh scientist who developed the polio vaccine, administers an injection to a boy at Arsenal Elementary School in Pittsburgh, Pa., Feb. 23, 1954.
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Related links:
Polio's last gasp

Smithsonian Institution: Whatever happened to polio?
University of Pittsburgh timeline: The shot heard 'round the world

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Iron lungs and leg braces were common sights in the late 1940s and early '50s. Polio claimed 30,000 to 50,000 victims each year in the United States. Parents kept their children indoors in hopes of shielding them from the crippling disease. Fifty years ago today, they were given hope that the fear would soon end. News came that a new vaccine could stop the dreaded illness.

Polio was eradicated in the United States in 1979, and the World Health Organization in 1988 began a drive to do it globally. By 2001, polio had been confined to just 10 countries - a victory, but an unfinished one.

The Caribbean had outbreaks when the weakened vaccine virus mutated back into a form that caused disease. Parts of Nigeria stopped using the vaccine because of rumors it caused infertility. Polio resurged and now is in a number of African countries that once were polio-free.

Dr. Donald "D.A." Henderson, who helped lead the campaign to eradicate smallpox, says the polio campaign should be abandoned and efforts focused on controlling outbreaks: "The probability of eradication is not high."

Rotary International, which has given $500-million, "is in this till the very end," said spokeswoman Vivian Fiore. And it still believes the end is in sight.

[Last modified April 12, 2005, 01:26:04]