The Canadian Polio Epidemic Imagine a disease that could affect an entire nation, then multiply that by 10. That explains the fear that people between 1927-1954 were facing. Polio is a crippling disease that affected tens of thousands between 1927-1954. The epidemics brought our country together and proved vaccines our very important to world health. Polio (poliomyelitis) is highly contagious disease than can cause permanent or temporary paralysis. Like many other diseases, Polio tends to infect the more vulnerable. This could be children under the age of five, pregnant women, and people that have weakened immune systems. Those who do not have the vaccine are very susceptible to getting the disease. The …show more content…
Epidemics were in 1927, 1936, 1941 and 1952. People were very scared of this painful disease. The public began "To regard [polio] as a fierce monster that lurked in the damp hollows of their experience," -Jane S. Smith, Patenting the Sun: Polio and the Salk …show more content…
There were many people hard at work trying to find a vaccine including an American researcher, Jonas Salk. Salk had created the vaccine years earlier but a lot of testing was required. He figured out that his vaccine worked about 86% of the time, which was better than any other vaccine. This vaccine was injected, but there was many side effects, including fevers and drowsiness but the good out weighed the bad. This was later to be called IPV (injected Polio Vaccine) because later OPV (Oral Polio Vaccine) was to be introduced.
Albert Sabin developed OPV in 1963. This vaccine was quite similar to Jonas Salk 's except that this one was orally given instead of injected. Further, OPV was generally better than IPV in the way that it was less expensive, easier to give and longer lasting in immunity.
The Canadian Foundation of Poliomyelitis was created in 1951 and later changed to the Ontario March of Dimes in 1973. Franklin D. Roosevelt founded the original March of Dimes in America in 1938. He created the organization to help battle to the fight against Polio, in the way that it funded research and medical rehabilitation for people affected by Polio. The organization helped many people in these ways. March of Dimes now works to improve the health of mothers and