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
Cold War tensions and the polio vaccine flew to Leningrad in June, 1956. As a result of a cooperation of Sabin and Chumakov in Leningrad, Sabin was able to test his attenuated vaccine when funding in America was declined. While Sabin was working behind the Iron Curtain, the Sabin-Chumakov vaccine was determined to be safe and effective. Cold War tensions caused Western scientists to refuse the reports from the Russians about the effectiveness of the Sabin vaccine. However, mass vaccinations of Sabin's vaccine spread throughout Eastern Europe from 1960–1963. Just as some Soviet virologists did not trust the Western Salk vaccine, Americans had similar reservations about the