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Polio vaccine facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts
Poliodrops
child is vaccinated against Polio

Polio vaccines are vaccines that prevent poliomyelitis (or polio). Two types of polio vaccines are used throughout the world.

The first type was developed by Jonas Salk and first tested in 1952. Announced to the world by Salk on April 12, 1955, it is an injection of inactivated (dead) poliovirus. The second type was an oral vaccine developed by Albert Sabin, using attenuated poliovirus. An attenuated virus is a much less harmful strain of the same virus. Human trials of Sabin's vaccine began in 1957 and it was licensed in 1962.

There is no long term carrier for poliovirus (carriers are people who carry the virus but have no symptoms of the disease), and polioviruses have no non-primate reservoir in nature. The virus cannot survive in the open environment for a long time. Therefore, interruption of person to person transmission of the virus by vaccination is the key step in removing polio entirely. The two vaccines have eliminated polio from most countries in the world. Polio worldwide has dropped from about 350,000 cases in 1988 to 1,652 cases in 2007.

Images for kids

  • Polio vaccine poster

    This 1963 poster featured CDC's national symbol of public health, the "Wellbee", encouraging the public to receive an oral polio vaccine.

  • Number of cVDPV cases since 2000

    cVDPV cases (red line) outnumbered wild polio cases (blue line) for the first time in 2017

  • Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F025952-0015, Bonn, Gesundheitsamt, Schutzimpfung

    Doses of oral polio vaccine are added to sugar cubes for use in a 1967 vaccination campaign in Bonn, West Germany

  • Immunization Certificate

    Sabin immunization certificate

  • Poliomyelitis Vaccine Type I Type III in Dragee Candy (Human Diploid Cell), Live at PRC70 Exhibition (20191203153024)

    Example of OPV in dragee candy

  • Salk headlines

    1955 newspaper headlines on the development of an effective polio vaccine

  • PittPolioVaccineCoL

    Administration of the polio inoculation, including by Salk himself, in 1957 at the University of Pittsburgh, where his team had developed the vaccine

  • Polio immunization days PHIL 2445

    Mass polio vaccination in Columbus, Georgia circa 1961 for the National Polio Immunization Program

  • Gallo, Robert C. and Sabin, Albert B

    Albert Sabin (right) with Robert Gallo, circa 1985

  • Somali boy receives a polio vaccination

    A Somali boy is injected with inactivated poliovirus vaccine (Mogadishu, 1993)

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Vacuna contra la poliomielitis para niños

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