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Researchers July 9, 2021
A Modified Vaccine Puts Us Closer Than Ever To Wiping Out Polio

Just decades ago, the technology we take for granted today was considered to be the stuff of science fiction and imaginary fantasies. But breakthroughs in research and development have shifted this perspective, altering the way humans see the potential of the future from that of someone with too much time on their hands to things that could be limitlessly possible.

This shift has allowed scientists to break through many glass ceilings, like how we treat diseases that were once thought to be incurable. With different types of medical treatment and vaccines, humans are able to suffer less and live longer. One of the diseases that used to run rampant but is now controlled through vaccines is polio. While this condition is much improved over its history, a modified vaccine may allow us to eradicate it completely.

A Brief Recap of Historically Successful Vaccines

Despite a long history of successes, vaccines continue to remain misunderstood and controversial. Yet, the practice of immunizing people first began centuries ago, when Buddhist monks drank snake venom to become immune to the thousands of venomous reptiles in their environment.

From there, 17th-century Chinese scholars learned how to use cowpox as a topical agent on open wounds to help create immunity to smallpox. Over time, professional vaccines as we know them today evolved, starting with Edward Jenner’s inoculation via needle to inject the cowpox vaccinia virus into a 13-year-old boy, thus creating the mass vaccine to smallpox still used today and eradicating the disease entirely by 1979.

Storing live vaccines was difficult, though, but Louis Pasteur’s pasteurization technique effectively solved this problem and paved the way for scientists and researchers to develop more accurate, cost-effective, and widespread vaccines.

Polio: An Almost Eradicated Disease

Despite a multi-billion dollar global effort to get rid of polio, this disease has begun making a comeback. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative that began in 1988 was first conceptualized because more than 350,000 children per year were paralyzed due to the disease. But by 2016, a mere 42 cases worldwide were recorded, thanks to the global effort and vaccines.

However, today’s reported cases have risen to over 200 wild polio strains and 600 cases that are linked to the vaccine’s strain. Vaccine-derived polio is one of the rare drawbacks in which people who have the oral polio vaccine spread the live virus to others through poor sanitation and feces. This virus can be virulent, spreading quickly. Getting clean water and waste facilities to these areas has become a priority, but with the pandemic of COVID-19 and military/government conflict in the same areas where polio is on the rise, the vaccines are unattainable by millions of children.

The New Vaccine and What it Means for Humanity

Part of the severity of this problem has to do with science’s confidence that the old polio strain had been eradicated. After 2016, children who received the vaccine against polio no longer had that strain in it. But the type 2 vaccine-derived outbreak can only be eliminated with that weakened type 2 virus.

Thus began the search for a new poliovirus type 2 vaccine that kept the original’s success and added some aspects that included prevention of adaptations of the virus. This new vaccine altered the genome of the oral polio virus, making it less likely to create the first change that would allow it to adapt. By swapping some genetic letters in the chromosomes, the new vaccine can’t easily modify itself and create its own immunity to the vaccine designed to destroy it.

Once the new, modified poliovirus type 2 oral vaccine is able to be given to the millions of people in need of it, the rest of the world will no longer have to be concerned about a pandemic of polio on top of the other viruses we’re dealing with today.

This is yet another example of science breaking through glass ceilings, using biotechnology to modify genetics and improve humanity, reducing suffering for the collective population.

Tags VaccineDisease
About the author
Jason Collins- Writer
Jason is a writer for many niche brands with experience “bringing stories to life” for both startups and corporate partners.
Jason Collins
Writer
Jason is a writer for many niche brands with experience “bringing stories to life” for both startups and corporate partners.
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