Avatars of polio in Spain: 60th anniversary of the first vaccination campaigns

e202309079

Abstract

Poliomyelitis was the most representative disease of the 20th century. During that period, it completed its cycle of emergency-expansion-decline-eradication, beginning its epidemic spread throughout the world with an unusual north-south gradient, since it first affected the most developed countries in northern Europe and America. . The incidence of alarming epidemic outbreaks during the first third of the century was especially virulent in the United States. This coincided with their beginnings as a dominant world power, so they assumed much of the scientific leadership and public initiatives to confront the disease. The emergence of polio was parallel to the rise of the media; the strength of the images that showed its consequences gave it a visibility that reflected the failure of medicine to mitigate it and generated panic among the population. This dramatic period characterized by fear and the feeling of threat in the face of the unknown aroused responses that translated into noticeable advances in the field of science with the unconditional support of the social sphere. No one remained inactive. Through serological studies, scientists were able to isolate the virus, understand its interpersonal transmissibility, its location in the digestive tract and nervous system, establish the antigenic differences between the different strains of the virus and its typing, or discover that they could spread. in in vitro cultures of human embryonic tissues of non-nervous origin, which allowed us to begin the era of cell cultures.