Jonas Salk, the polio virus and the vaccine

This is the story of Jonas Salk, the polio virus and the vaccine he developed. Polio is a virus that can cause paralysis or even death. It spreads through dirty water, it attacks the nervous system and stops the muscles working. Kids with polio had to use crutches or a wheelchair to get around. There is no cure but thanks to Jonas Salk there is a vaccine. This is Jonas Salk. With the help of others he found the vaccine for polio and saved millions of lives. At first he wanted to study law but then he switched to medicine. We're lucky he did. Did he come from a brainy family of scientists? Not at all. His parents were Russian Jewish immigrants with no college education. But listen, Jonas was clever and he studied hard and went to a school for gifted kids. Then he won a place at the City College of New York, alma mater of a whopping eight Nobel Prize winners. Salk didn't want to be a doctor, he wanted to do medical research. I want to be of some help to humankind. He was interested in the flu virus which had been discovered in 1933. In his final year at medical school he started work on finding a vaccine for influenza. At 33 he switched his focus to the polio virus which was highly contagious and extremely dangerous. With government funding and a brilliant team Jonas Salk set about developing a vaccine. By the 1950s people were living in fear of this incurable, invisible disease that could paralyse and kill. Everywhere parents kept their children away from swimming pools, movie theatres and summer camps. No one knew when the disease would strike. Because it affected everyone, everyone helped in the search for a vaccine. The March of Dimes was an organisation set up by President Roosevelt in 1938 which raised millions of dollars for polio research through public donations. A dime is only 10 cents but everyone could afford to contribute and they did. After three years working non-stop Jonas Salk had a vaccine. First he had to test it on monkeys. Then in 1954 he tested it on kids. Finally he tested it on 1.8 million volunteers and it worked. In 1955 Salk's polio vaccine was approved for the public. Jonas Salk became a science superstar. In 1963 he founded the Salk Institute in California to help future scientists. He once said, Hope lies in dreams, in imagination and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality. This was a great man who believed in helping humankind. Today this most feared disease has almost been wiped from the face of the earth thanks to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. Because of Salk's vaccine, in 2017 there were only 22 confirmed cases in our population of 7 billion. We're nearly there! you