Dorothy Millicent Horstmann played a significant yet often unacknowledged role in the development of the polio vaccine . In the late 1940s and early 1950s, before polio immunizations were considered feasible, she conducted groundbreaking animal studies...

Poliomyelitis, also known as infantile paralysis, is an acute viral infection that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis. Where the disease is common, most infections probably go unnoticed or result in mild symptoms, such as fever, sore...

Two polio vaccines are used throughout the world to combat polio. The first was developed by Jonas Salk, first tested in 1952, and announced to the world by Salk on April 12, 1955. It consists of an injected dose of inactivated (dead) poliovirus. The...

The U.N. health agency plans to vaccinate nearly 3 million children in the Horn of Africa this year against polio, a crippling disease that experts fear could spread rapidly along the region's volatile and porous borders. The campaign,...

During an official check to certify that Namibia remained polio-free a decade after it declared it had conquered the disease, officials made a surprising find: A 39-year-old man stricken with the virus. Since that first case in May, Namibia has...

Myanmar will launch a polio immunization campaign after a toddler was found with the disease, the country's second case since it was declared free of the paralyzing illness seven years ago, a newspaper reported Sunday.The campaign, launched by the health ministry and the United Nation's...

Volunteer health workers have launched a massive polio vaccination campaign in Afghanistan's violent southern region after assurances of safe passage, UNICEF said Saturday.Vaccinators are working in unstable areas of Kandahar and Helmand provinces with the help of Kandahar's governor and local elders, who worked to...