How the terrible epidemic of the 50s was lived

Between December 1955 and March 1956 There was an epidemic of polyomyelitis in Argentina that produced ravages that for many are still contemporaries: we have almost all known, seen or had in the family be loved with the motor scars of that disease.

One of the protection measures in that strange mixture produced by ignorance, despair and good will, was the hygiene of the streets and homes; The paths of the paths were painted with limewhite, like the trunks of the trees and in the cleaning of the streets the neighbors had to collaborate.

The restrictions on children were tremendously severe: They had to avoid the groups, run, stir and they were asked to stop all that activity to perspire.

The boys and girls who lived those days remember the prohibition of playing and The camphor hung by the neck like the one who carried garlic to neutralize the count Dracula. Many made them vohos with eucalyptus water. But beyond the care to avoid infection, the circumstance was dramatic.

On that path, vaccination campaigns in constant articulation with entities such as Red Cross had to do.

Vaccines, as happened in Covid-19 times, were expected with anguish by the population. The elaboration of the successful vaccine with the polio happened very shortly before the coup of the ’55.

His announcement took place on April 12 of that year when Professor Thomas Francis, of the Department of Epidemiology of the School of Public Health of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, USA, announced that The anti -polyomyelitis vaccine with inactivated viruses was effective, innocuous and immunogenic.

Only a few days after that announcement of April 12, on 19, the Government explained that the arrival of vaccines from the North American Laboratory Parke Davis had been arranged. The delivery of vaccines, due to the huge international demand, was postponed.

In the centennial publication of the Red Cross you can read a memory of those days:

“When the epidemic of polyomyelitis was declared, in its most virulent face, in 1956, there were 170 nurses and nurses of the Argentine Red Cross, some not yet received, providing honorary services in Muñiz, Casa Cuna and Childrenonly in Buenos Aires, to which you have to add the contributions made by its subsidiaries, each in its region.

Also in 1956- in a way the year of relief, because it was when he began applying the Salk Vaccine- the Argentine Red Cross acquired a vehicle and equipped it especially for attend to those affected by the terrible diseaseand made it available to the National Commission for Rehabilitation of the Listed. ”

He used funds that he had obtained from a collection campaign that took place in 1955.

That commission had been created during the de facto government, but strengthened its presence at the time of Arturo Frondizi, from 1958.

Albert Sabin developed a more effective vaccine. With two droplets – and a lump of sugar so that the boys and girls take it with joy – it seemed to be enough.

This new immunization, made with virus attenuated, displaced the injectable vaccine. Sabin did not patented immunization because he declined to benefit economically from his discovery.

With “La Sabin Oral” the polio really began to decline. Today The disease is eradicated in much of the world thanks to the vaccine. He also declined the fear and anguish of millions.