New Polio Vaccines

this graph was created in OurDataWorld:

We’ve come a long way in the fight against polio — the infectious disease that used to paralyze hundreds of thousands of people each year. Most of them were children. Eradication is possible, but the last stretch has proven difficult.

Two of the three serotypes (distinct types within a species of virus) of wild poliovirus have already been eradicated.

However, two big challenges remain in crossing the finish line. One is eliminating the last serotype of wild poliovirus. Another is containing vaccine-derived polioviruses, which arose from oral polio vaccines in rare circumstances and spread in some regions where protection against the disease declined.

The world can overcome these hurdles. We can use new vaccines to contain them and improve testing, outbreak responses, and sanitation.

The chart below shows the dramatic decline in polio cases.

This was possible due to effective vaccination efforts with two types of vaccine: inactivated polio vaccines (IPV), developed by Jonas Salk in 1955, and oral polio vaccines (OPV), developed by Albert Sabin in 1961.

Improvements in providing clean water and sanitation have also helped to reduce the spread of poliovirus through contaminated water and food and the risks of other infections, which prevent children from developing immunity against polio.1

In the early 1980s, there were around 400,000 estimated cases annually. In the last few years, there have been around 4,000. That’s a hundred-fold decline. Millions of children have been spared lifelong paralysis.