Polio: The Odyssey of Eradication

Many have written about the virus poliomyelitis from different perspectives. Medical historians have documented the research involved in identifying the virus, its transmission, and the development of vaccines that reduced confirmed cases of polio worldwide. Social historians have discussed the polio outbreaks in the United States—particularly in the 1920s, after indoor plumbing reduced exposure to the poliovirus—in which school-age children with no immunity were stricken with paralysis. Subsequently, many post-polio victims have published accounts of their experiences. After Franklin Delano Roosevelt contracted polio in 1921, the National Foundation of Infantile Paralysis facilitated the development and trials of the Salk vaccine, with which many children were vaccinated after its approval in 1955. Public-health professionals and global-health philanthropists have also written about their experiences with the implementation of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (gpei), and medical anthropologists have detailed the reception and impact of the gpei in several parts of...