CINCINNATI

With all the news about the coronavirus coming out of China, I'm reminded about the great pandemic of my early age. -  poliomyelitis  (Polio).  The polio virus attacks nerve cells in the spinal chord limiting one's ability to use their muscles properly . . .  to walk.  It mostly effected the young.

Jonas Salk developed the first vaccine for prevention of the disease in 1954 and released in 1955.  This injection was a huge breakthrough. 

Albert Sabin was on the staff at Cincinnati Children's Hospital and later the head of Pediatric Research at the University of Cincinnati.  Dr. Sabin developed an oral vaccine for polio in the middle  1950s which was easier to administer and lasted longer.  It was first tested on inmates at the Ohio Reformatory in Chillicothe, Ohio and then out of the country.  Final trials were run in the U.S. on Cincinnati area school children, including me, in 1959 and 1960.   

Polio is a disease that has been essentially stopped.  There have been no reported cases in the world for over four years - sixteen years in the Americas..  Thank you Cincinnati!