In the 1940s and 1950s, polio was considered a global epidemic, with thousands of new cases arising each day throughout the world. Families in the United States kept their children out of public places such as parks and swimming pools, worried they would catch the disease. Between 1950 and 1954, doctors say some 22,000 US citizens were paralyzed by the virus. In 1952, the same year scientists developed an effective polio vaccine, almost 58,000 children were reported to be infected in the US alone, leaving 3,300 dead and thousands paralyzed.
In India, the journey toward eradicating the disease has been a long one. By 1988, when the World Health Organization (WHO) passed a resolution to eradicate polio, 1,000 people a day worldwide were still being stricken by the virus. India accounted for around half that, with 450 children infected with polio every day, says Deepak Kapur, chairman of Rotary International’s India PolioPlus Committee. Read more
Source : www.minnpost.com







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