Sabin oral polio vaccine

Year

1954-1962

By

Albert B. Sabin

Company

Cincinnati Children's Hospital

Place

Cincinnati, Hamilton County ZIP 45229 · Cincinnati · Hamilton County

Polio frightened families in the first half of the 1900s because it could paralyze a child in days. The Salk vaccine, a shot made from killed virus, came first, but it did not stop the virus from multiplying in the intestines, so it could not end epidemics by itself.

Albert Sabin worked in Cincinnati at the University of Cincinnati Children's Hospital from 1939, for about thirty years, studying how poliovirus multiplied in the gut before reaching nerve cells. He made a vaccine from weakened live viruses that could be swallowed.

Early trials were done at the reformatory in Chillicothe, Ohio, in late 1954. From 1955 to 1961 his vaccine was given to over 90 million people in the USSR, Eastern Europe, Singapore, Mexico and the Netherlands, with Soviet scientists Mikhail Chumakov and Marina Voroshilova organizing the large-scale production. The United States licensed types 1 and 2 in 1961, type 3 in 1962 and the combined vaccine in 1964.

In Cincinnati, between April 25 and May 1, 1960, about 80,000 preschool-age children were taken by their parents to doctors' offices or city health clinics for a free dose. The Cincinnati Board of Health and the Cincinnati Academy of Medicine ran the campaign with support from the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis.

Sabin gave the vaccine away and did not profit from it. The Sabin Vaccine Institute was founded in 1993 to continue the work.

• 1939: Sabin begins polio research at the Children's Hospital in Cincinnati. (Cincinnati, OH) source
• 1954: First trials of the oral vaccine at the Chillicothe reformatory (late 1954). (Chillicothe, OH) source
• 1955-1961: Over 90 million people receive the vaccine abroad. (USSR, Eastern Europe, Singapore, Mexico, Netherlands) source
• 1960-04-25: About 80,000 Cincinnati preschool-age children receive the oral vaccine over the following week. (Cincinnati, OH) source
• 1961: Types 1 and 2 are licensed in the United States. (United States) source
• 1962: Type 3 is licensed. (United States) source
• 1964: The combined three-type vaccine is approved. (United States) source
• 1993: The Sabin Vaccine Institute is established. source

• Given to over 90 million people from 1955 to 1961 before U.S. licensing.
• Sabin gave the vaccine free of charge and did not profit.

Made mass immunization easy and cheap.

An earlier account gave the vaccine's development as 1957 to 1961; the range used here is 1954 to 1962.

• Wikipedia: Albert Sabin

• Wikipedia: Albert Sabin
• Cincinnati Public Library: Cincinnati and the Sabin Oral Polio Vaccine (opened)