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
Polio vaccine testing outside the United States, Sabin in Mexico and then in the Soviet Union, and Koprowski in the Congo and Poland. In 1957, Sabin developed a trivalent vaccine, containing attenuated strains of all three types of poliovirus. In 1959, ten million children in the Soviet Union received the Sabin oral vaccine. For this work, Sabin was given the medal of the Order of Friendship Among Peoples, described as the Soviets' highest civilian honor, despite having become an American during the height of the cold war. Sabin's oral vaccine using live virus came into commercial use in 1961. Once Sabin’s oral