Polio is a
great immunization success story. In the 1940s and 1950s, people
lived in fear of Polio - in 1952 alone, 20,000 people
had paralytic polio, the most serious form of the disease.
Paralytic polio can lead to permanent loss of the use of
affected arms or legs, and even death. Some people with
paralytic polio had to spend the rest of their lives in machines
called "iron lungs" because they could not breathe on
their own.
The polio
vaccine was first used in 1955; people lined up in the streets
to get immunized. Thanks to this vaccine, today's parents in the United
States don't worry about their children experiencing polio. |
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