Polio and its vaccines

The first polio vaccine was created in the 1950s known as the inactivated polio vaccine. This had to be administered via injection (Britannica, 2017) . Then in the 60s the second kind of vaccine was developed, the Oral Polio vaccine, a weakened live virus that can be given orally (Britannica, 2017). This made the vaccine much more available worldwide. These two vaccines along with other global interventions have changed the story about polio.

Polio is a life threatening disease causing paralysis, but with the emergence of a polio vaccine the number of cases related to the wild polio virus has shown a significant drop. In the article Sequential inactivated (IPV) and live oral (OPV) poliovirus vaccines for preventing poliomyelitis, they indicate the increasing number of paralysis from one of the two types of vaccine, the Oral Polio Vaccine. The problem being that it is a weakened live virus unlike the Inactive Polio Vaccine. Though with the understanding that the OPV and the IPV have their benefits and such they conducted an experiment to review the efficacy of giving the IPV and the OPV together. From their data and results I believe that it could be beneficial in decreasing the number of OPV related paralysis. I am curious if we could move to make an oral version of the IPV to make it more easily available to everyone around the world.

According to The U.S. Government and Global Polio Efforts Polio has been infecting the world since ancient times, but in 2018, due to the vaccine efforts, there were only 33 reported cases! (thats pretty good!!). With efforts to continue to eradicate the virus from more countries and have it completely wiped off the earth in 3 years! If accomplished this would be the second infectious disease eradicated ever. Another interesting point that the article above mentioned is that The U.S. government has been the second largest donor to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative and as a supporter of developing countries’ efforts. From previous studies in global health I know that the US does give a large sum of money to developing nations but what it does’t include is that number divided by the GDP of the country. With that factored in we fall along one of the lowest contributing nation.