Franklin A. Neva followed by service with the US Navy at Naval Medical Research Unit-3 in Cairo, Egypt. He spent several years at Harvard University as a researcher. He became a professor at University of Pittsburgh, where he worked with Jonas Salk on a vaccine for polio. While at Pittsburgh, he also isolated ECHO 16, the virus responsible for Boston exanthem disease. This was the first description of that disease. Together with Thomas Weller, he isolated the Rubella virus in 1962. In 1964 he moved back to Harvard to head the Department of Tropical Public Health. In 1969 he joined the National Institutes
Jonas Salk assembled, devoted himself to this work for the next seven years. The field trial set up to test the Salk vaccine was, according to O'Neill, "the most elaborate program of its kind in history, involving 20,000 physicians and public health officers, 64,000 school personnel, and 220,000 volunteers." Over 1,800,000 school children took part in the trial. When news of the vaccine's success was made public on April 12, 1955, Salk was hailed as a "miracle worker" and the day almost became a national holiday. Around the world, an immediate rush to vaccinate began, with countries including Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Norway,