1350-1580 – Egyptian “stele” describe priests with a “faded” leg, based on sticks, suggesting that poliomyelitis has been endemic for thousands of years. It is possible to describe Polio in the Bible (see the Gospel according to Saint Matthew)
1789 – dr. Michael Underwood, a British doctor, undertook the first clinical description of the disease, entitled “Lower limb pain”
1840 – German orthopedist Jacob von Heine published a comprehensive monograph on this disease, but he has not yet considered the relationship between the symptoms and changes that occur in the spinal cord
1860 – the second edition of Jacob von Heine’s publication appears, where the changes occurring in the spinal cord are described. The author introduces the name poliomyelitis
1890 – Swedish pediatrician Oskar Karl Medin is the first to point to the infectious and epidemic nature of this disease
1894 – the first significant outbreak of childhood paralysis, later identified as poliomyelitis, was registered in the United States
1907 – Swedish pediatrician Dr. Ivar Wickman classified various clinical types of Heine and Medina’s disease
1909 – the discovery of polio virus by the Austrian-American immunologist Karl Landsteiner and the German pathologist Erwin Pooper
1948 – Thomas Weller and Frederick Robbins successfully multiplied polio virus on living cells, which was the basis for developing any polio vaccine. Six years later, they received the Nobel Prize for this work. The WHO is founded
1955 – Dr. Jonas Salk produces the first vaccine against poliomyelitis from inactivated viruses. IPV
1961 – Dr Ablert Sabin develops an oral vaccine
1984 – the last case of Poliomyelitis caused by wild type of virus in Poland.
1988 – The World Health Assembly adopts a resolution on the eradication of Poliomyelitis in the world
1994 – the American region is declared free of poliovirus
2000 – the West Pacific region is declared free of the polio virus
2002 – the European region (including Poland) obtains certification as free from polio virus