Polio Vaccine: An Overview
Polio vaccine is a medicine that is given to prevent polio (also called poliomyelitis).
There are two general types of polio vaccine. One type is an inactivated polio vaccine, meaning that the vaccine contains no live
poliovirus. The other type is an
oral polio vaccine, which contains live but weakened poliovirus.
History of Polio and the Polio Vaccine
A 1916 polio epidemic in the United States killed 6,000 people and paralyzed 27,000 more. In the early 1950s, there were more than 20,000 cases of polio each year. Polio vaccination began in 1955. By 1960, the number of polio disease cases had dropped to about 3,000. The last cases of paralytic poliomyelitis caused by endemic
polio transmission of wild virus in the United States were in 1979, when an outbreak occurred among the Amish in several Midwestern states. The success of the polio vaccination in the United States and other countries sparked a worldwide effort to eliminate polio.
The inactivated polio vaccine was licensed in 1955 and was used extensively from that time until the early 1960s. In 1961, the oral polio vaccine was licensed. Oral polio vaccine was the vaccine of choice in the United States and most other countries of the world after its introduction. However, oral polio vaccine can cause a rare but serious reaction called vaccine-associated paralytic poliomyelitis. When an enhanced-potency inactivated polio vaccine became available in 1998, it was recommended that the oral polio vaccine not be used. In 2000, the use of oral polio vaccine in the Unites States was discontinued.
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