Today in history: February 23, 1954,

On February 23, 1954, a group of children in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania made history by vaccinating the polio vaccine developed by Dr. Jonas Salk for the first time. These children are first-year, second-year and third-year students studying in local public schools and parish schools.

In 195s, polio was still a very infectious disease. Although under normal circumstances, the impact of polio is not as destructive as influenza, when polio breaks out, it seems uncontrollable. The disease mainly attacks children, nerve cells and sometimes the central nervous system, resulting in muscle degeneration, paralysis and sometimes even death. The most famous polio patient was President franklin delano roosevelt, who was infected with polio in an epidemic in 1921 and his legs were permanently paralyzed. With the help of President Roosevelt, a grassroots organization was established in the 194s to find a cure for polio. The organization named "National Polio Foundation" (later "dime * * *") invited Dr. Jonas Salk from the University of Pittsburgh to lead their team. In his research, salk found that there are at least 125 strains of poliovirus in three different types. In order for the vaccine to be effective, it must kill these three people. Salk planted different virus samples and then killed or invalidated them, which means that patients can be immunized without actual infection.

the clinical trial of Salk polio vaccine was the largest ever-by 1955, 4 million vaccines had been inoculated. The result was dramatic. About 65% of the vaccinated people were protected by poliovirus type 1, 9% by poliovirus type 2 and 94% by poliovirus type 3, which largely prevented further poliomyelitis epidemic. (Today, with some progress, with only two doses, the effective rate of all three types of vaccines is close to 9%, and the immunization rate of three doses is close to 99%.

Salk told Edward R.Murrow in a TV interview, "Will you patent Sun?" ? "There are two views about the meaning of Salcher's sentence. Most people think that Dr. Salcher thinks that sharing the medical progress in this field is a moral necessity. Recently, however, there is a theory that salk can be generous, because he knows that if he applies for a patent, he will never get it.

Whatever Dr. Salk's motivation was, it changed the lives of millions of people.

On March 11th, 1954, * * * reported: "This is described as a long-sought answer to an important question, so that it can actually be determined that vaccines will not only produce effective immunity to all three kinds of poliomyelitis, but also that immunity will last for a long time, possibly for a person's life. This may mean that in the next three to five years, polio, regardless of age, will become a plague that human beings will finally tame and conquer together with diphtheria, smallpox, typhoid and other terrible infectious diseases. In the United States alone, 1, new polio cases have been discovered, resulting in more than 3, deaths and about 21, disabilities. In 1988, there were only about 35, cases of polio in the world, mainly distributed in underdeveloped countries. In the same year, WHO, UNICEF and Rotary Foundation set out to eradicate this disease that has plagued mankind since prehistoric times. In 212, due to these efforts centered on the wider use of polio vaccine, the number of cases decreased to 223, mainly in Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is hoped that in the next ten years, polio will only exist in the laboratory like smallpox.

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