Why Does This Matter?
The polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk, was the first to use a virus in a vaccine. Thus changing the way we develop and use vaccines. Before Salk, vaccines consisted of diseased skin, or other infected things. Although Dr. Jonas Salk used a dead virus in his vaccine, instead of the now more commonly used live virus, he still overcame obstacles and took risks that no one else was willing to take.
Reported paralytic polio cases and deaths in the United States since 1910
Reported paralytic polio cases and deaths in the United States since 1910.
Photograph. https://ourworldindata.org/polio.
After Dr Jonas Salk developed his vaccine in 1955, the numbers of recorded cases of polio significantly dropped. This was extremely important at the time because the polio epidemic was at an all time high leading to thousands of deaths. Shown in the graph above, recorded cases of polio peaked between 1953 and 1956. Once Salk’s vaccine was more widely distributed, the number of deaths caused by polio decreased significatly.