Course: Restoring Vaccine Diplomacy
CME Credits: 1.00
Released: 2021-05-28
More than 60 years ago, the US and the USSR, while in the midst of the Cold War, collaborated to produce and scale a new oral polio vaccine and test it on millions of Soviet schoolchildren. The 3 poliovirus strains suitable for vaccine production were first developed in the laboratory of Albert Sabin and were sent (with US government approval) to the USSR, where Sabin then worked with Soviet science counterparts, including Mikhail Chumakov. These studies paved the way for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. Later, in the 1960s, the USSR refined a technique for freeze-drying the smallpox vaccine, making it possible to deliver it intact to remote tropical areas. This innovation helped D.A. Henderson, a US epidemiologist, to lead a global smallpox eradication campaign under the auspices of the World Health Organization (WHO). In both cases, 2 political enemies put aside their differences to collaborate on solving great public health or pandemic threats. Both achievements helped to ignite a modern international framework of vaccine diplomacy for promoting scientific collaboration for vaccine development and ensuring vaccine equity.
Educational Objective
To identify the key insights or developments described in this article
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