The Legacy Of The Polio Vaccine In 7 Countries

Today is the 100th birthday of Dr. Jonas Salk, inventor of the polio vaccine. Here are the places still using his gift.









Google on Tuesday used its Doodle to celebrate Dr. Jonas Salk, the inventor of the polio vaccine, who would have turned 100 today.



Salk's successful vaccine was first announced live on CBS Radio the night of March 26, 1953. Salk became an overnight celebrity. Rather than choosing to patent the vaccine, Salk chose instead to leave it available for the benefit of all. The number of new cases in the United States plummeted from 58,000 in 1952 to 6,000 in 1957, the first year after the vaccine became widely available.

Today, the polio virus is only endemic — or regularly found — in three countries: Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria. Groups like the Global Polio Eradication Initiative hope that the disease will join smallpox as being completed wiped out as soon as 2018. Here's a look at how seven countries have benefited from the vaccine — and how much work there is still is ahead.


Via Google














Pakistan



A girl receives polio vaccine drops at a government dispensary in a Karachi slum


Akhtar Soomro / Via Reuters











In Pakistan, the vaccination campaign has hit several major roadblocks lately. The first is an ongoing campaign of violence against aid workers who distribute the vaccine. After the revelation that the CIA used a fake vaccination campaign as part of their efforts to find Osama bin Laden, health workers of all types have become targets of the Pakistani Taliban and other extremist groups.

But the problem also lies, as a new report due out this week will say, in government mismanagement. "Pakistan's polio programme is a disaster. It continues to flounder hopelessly, as its virus flourishes," the Independent Monitoring Board, which advises agencies fighting polio, will say, according to Reuters.

The result is that Pakistan has so far this year reported 210 new cases of polio, compared with just 47 this time last year.

















Nigeria



An unidentified health official administers a polio vaccine to a child in Kawo Kano, Nigeria, Sunday, April. 13, 2014


Sunday Alamba / Via AP Photo




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