Polio survivor Mona was one of the last three iron lung users in the United States. Photo courtesy of the Kansas City News Service Polio outbreaks in the 1990s were commonplace and highly feared. Years of successful vaccination efforts have almost completely eliminated polio except in Pakistan and Afghanistan, two countries where polio is endemic. Many hope we can learn from the history of polio vaccination efforts to guide us through the crisis. However, a worrying trend is emerging. to better outcomes in the coronavirus pandemic but vaccine skepticism brought about by the pandemic led to the re-emergence of polio.
An unvaccinated man in New York contracted polio and became paralyzed by the virus. This is the first case of polio in New York in ten years. New York City's wastewater data shows this infection is just the tip of the iceberg, with hundreds more symptomatic cases showing there china data are hundreds more. The number of unvaccinated continues to rise Scientists sound alarm Declining vaccination rates will lead to a resurgence of other once-contained diseases, leading to increased illness and death among children and adults and huge strains on our health care systems.
History tends to repeat itself. Scientists and historians look back at the efforts to develop a polio vaccine and the efforts to convince the public to take it. Now history is repeating itself in an even more literal way with polio re-emerging at a time when vaccine skepticism is running high. We're looking at the history of the polio vaccine and how it can inform our vaccination efforts against polio and other viruses. Polio’s Dark History Leads to Scientific Breakthrough Poliovirus and the novel coronavirus are both viruses, of course, but there are some interesting similarities in the way society has dealt with both issues in the past and continues to do so today.