polio

Health & Safety

Among The 1st To Get A Polio Vaccine, Peter Salk Says Don't Rush A COVID-19 Shot

9:20pm May 30, 2020

by Greg Myre

When he was 9 years old, Salk was inoculated by the polio vaccine developed by his father, Dr. Jonas Salk. Today, he is an optimistic about a COVID-19 vaccine but offers a warning.

Dr. Jonas Salk, the scientist who created the polio vaccine, administers an injection to an unidentified boy at Arsenal Elementary School in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1954.

The Race For A Polio Vaccine Differed From The Quest To Prevent Coronavirus

3:14pm May 22, 2020

by Joe Palca

In the 1950s, as Dr. Jonas Salk and virologist Albert Sabin worked to create a vaccine to prevent infantile paralysis, the threat from polio was already long familiar to Americans.

Queue Listen Now

Ina Pinkney in 1948 after undergoing her first corrective surgery.

'There Was So Little Information': Polio Survivors Offer Pandemic Perspective

8:13pm May 12, 2020

by Apoorva Mittal

The children and preteens of the U.S. polio epidemic of the 1940s and '50s are once again in a high-risk group, this time for coronavirus. They recall their experiences and the parallels to today.

Queue Listen Now

From left: Sekou Sheriff, of Barkedu village in Liberia, whose parents died at an Ebola treatment center; a polio vaccination booth in Pakistan; a schoolgirl in Ethiopia examines underwear with a pocket for a menstrual pad; an image from a video on the et

Reporters Pick Their Favorite Global Stories Of The Decade

2:26pm December 31, 2019

by Marc Silver

The topics range from a ticking time bomb in the Arctic to the art of taking selfies in an ethical way. Here are the stories selected by our contributors.

Photo taken Sun., Aug. 28, 2016. A health official inks a child finger to indicate she has been administered with a polio vaccine at a camp of people displaced by Islamist extremist in Maiduguri, Nigeria.

Polio Vaccine May Stall The End Of Polio

5:06pm November 15, 2019

by Jason Beaubien

Health officials have long known that virus from the oral vaccine can contaminate water supplies; they underestimated how big a problem this would be.

Mothers and their babies in Nigeria wait at a health center that provides vaccinations against polio. Vaccination rates lag in the middle-income country.

When Countries Get Wealthier, Kids Can Lose Out On Vaccines

4:27pm November 12, 2019

by Pien Huang

Childhood vaccines are often subsidized in the poorest countries. But not for those moving up the wealth ladder.

A health worker gives the oral polio vaccine to a child in Karachi, Pakistan.

Ghost Viruses And The Taliban Stand In The Way Of Wiping Out Polio

1:45am October 25, 2019

by Jason Beaubien

The World Health Organization is celebrating the eradication of another strain of the polio virus. Yet major challenges remain in the global effort to get rid of the disease.

Queue Listen Now

Health & Safety

Greensboro's Former Polio Hospital Is Getting A Historical Marker

12:21pm June 17, 2019

by Paul Garber

A former hospital in Greensboro is getting a historical marker this week.

A girl is treated for suspected cholera infection at a hospital in Sanaa, Yemen. There were more than 1 million cases of cholera in the country between April 2017 and April 2018.

The Health Of The World In 2018, By The Numbers

2:04pm December 28, 2018

by Susan Brink

There is cause for optimism — and for despair. One statistic is so distressing that the Red Cross calls it "a hideous milestone for the 21st century."

This did not really happen. Cows' heads did not emerge from the bodies of people newly inoculated against smallpox. But fear of the vaccine was so widespread that it prompted British satirist James Gillray to create this spoof in 1802.

New Book: Vaccines Have Always Had Haters

2:55pm September 23, 2018

by Susan Brink

That's one of the themes in the new book 'Between Hope and Fear: A History of Vaccines and Human Immunity.'