Albert Bruce Sabin: the man who made the oral polio vaccine

Albert Bruce Sabin (1906–1993) was the man who made the oral polio vaccine (OPV). Sabin’s name will always be associated with poliomyelitis, a disease that claimed millions of victims in the 20th century, particularly among children. Sabin created his vaccine (OPV) at the Children’s Hospital in Cincinnati. The mass vaccination campaign in the Soviet Union demonstrated high vaccine effectiveness and resulted in licensure of OPV in the United States in 1961. Subsequently, in the United States, OPV rapidly replaced IPV during the 1960s as the vaccine of choice. Sabin’s vaccine, which was economical to produce and very easy to administer on a sugar lump to children, came to be used worldwide in the 1960s.