Polio vaccine A global effort to eradicate polio, led by the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and The Rotary Foundation, began in 1988 and has relied largely on the oral polio vaccine developed by Albert Sabin and Mikhail Chumakov (Sabin-Chumakov vaccine). Polio was eliminated in the Americas by 1994. The disease was officially eliminated in 36 Western Pacific countries, including China and Australia, in 2000. Europe was declared polio-free in 2002. Since January 2011, no cases of the disease have been reported in India, hence in February 2012, the country was taken off the WHO list of polio-endemic countries. In March 2014, India
Albert Joyce Riker a retired microbiologist from the University of Arizona. He died in Tucson, Arizona. Albert Joyce Riker Dr. Albert Joyce Riker (April 3, 1894 – February 21, 1982) was a noted American plant pathologist and professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Riker was born in Wheeling, West Virginia, the son of Albert Birdsall and Mary Edith (Davis) Riker. He graduated from high school in Moundsville, West Virginia, after which he worked for the Royal Three Barrel Gun Company, was an automobile repairman and salesman, and helped build greenhouses. He then attended Oberlin College, receiving in 1917 his A.B. degree in botany.