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Vaccine Creator
PAUL POPPER/POPPERFOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES
DISEASE DESTROYER: Medical researcher Jonas Salk invented the vaccine for polio.
AL FENN/THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION VIA GETTY IMAGES
BUILDING IMMUNITY: Jonas Salk injects a young boy with his new polio vaccine.
On March 26, 1953, Jonas Salk announced a discovery that would save hundreds of thousands of lives a year. The scientist had created the world’s first vaccine against polio. A vaccine is a medicine that protects people from contracting a specific disease. “Salk became a celebrity overnight,” says Dr. Howard Markel, a medical historian at the University of Michigan. Polio affects mostly children, causing paralysis, or inability to move, and even death. It was one of the most feared illnesses of the early 20th century. Today, polio has almost been wiped out. To celebrate Salk’s accomplishment, World Polio Day is held every 24th of October—the same month Salk was born.
The graph below shows polio cases in the U.S. before and after doctors began administering Salk’s vaccine. Salk’s team started testing the vaccine in 1952, before officially announcing the discovery in 1953. How long after the invention of the vaccine did the virus disappear in the U.S.?
SOURCE: OUR WORLD IN DATA