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  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services | National Institutes of Health

Brief History of Polio

Dr Sabin administers a oral vaccine to a girl in a dress next to an older boy

Dr. Sabin administering the oral polio vaccine to a child Hauck Center for the Albert B. Sabin Archives, Henry R. Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions, University of Cincinnati

1956

Dr. Sabin developed the live attenuated polio vaccine (OPV).

In 1956, Dr. Albert Sabin developed the live attenuated (a weakened version of the virus) polio vaccine. The Sabin vaccine, known as OPV because it is administered orally, has all three strains of the wild polio virus. Dr. Sabin worked at the Children’s Hospital Research Foundation in Cincinnati, Ohio.


1955
1958


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