{"id":2564,"date":"2020-05-18T17:28:22","date_gmt":"2020-05-18T21:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/bims\/?p=2564"},"modified":"2026-05-01T13:04:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T17:04:17","slug":"in-victory-over-polio-hope-for-the-battle-against-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/bims\/in-victory-over-polio-hope-for-the-battle-against-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"In Victory Over Polio, Hope for the Battle Against COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-2566\" src=\"https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/bims\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/390\/2020\/05\/bill_petri_04_ss-1.jpg\" alt=\"Bill Petri\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/bims\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/390\/2020\/05\/bill_petri_04_ss-1.jpg 250w, https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/bims\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/390\/2020\/05\/bill_petri_04_ss-1-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/bims\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/390\/2020\/05\/bill_petri_04_ss-1-200x200.jpg 200w, https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/bims\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/390\/2020\/05\/bill_petri_04_ss-1-100x100.jpg 100w, https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/bims\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/390\/2020\/05\/bill_petri_04_ss-1-70x70.jpg 70w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/>UVA Health&#8217;s Bill Petri, MD, PhD, is developing a vaccine for COVID-19.<\/p>\n<p>For much of the 20th century, summer was \u201cpolio season,\u201d and people were accustomed to seeing swimming pools and movie theaters closed to stave off the latest epidemic. Shaking hands was off limits, and even touching money was perilous. The ever-present threat of death or permanent paralysis from polio was part of life, as were regular social-distancing efforts to limit the terrible disease\u2019s spread.<\/p>\n<p>For many younger people in America, the idea of living under threat from a serious infectious disease has been hard to imagine, at least until COVID-19. But now the story of the victory over polio is even more resonant. In a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1126\/science.abb8588\">new editorial in the journal Science<\/a>, UVA Health\u2019s William A. Petri, MD, PhD, and graduate student Alexandra N. Donlan highlight medicine\u2019s great triumph over polio, at least in the West, and hold out hope we can do the same for COVID-19.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNearly four decades ago the United States was faced with a similar challenge, the race to develop a vaccine against an infectious disease,\u201d said Petri, an infectious disease expert who is developing a COVID vaccine. \u201cJonas Salk\u2019s demonstration of the ability of vaccination to prevent paralysis due to polio in 1955 led to a nationwide celebration and Salk\u2019s invitation to the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Preventing Polio<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The editorial authors call the prevention of polio epidemics a \u201csignature success of science in the 20th century.\u201d But it was no easy task, they note, and the worldwide eradication of polio remains elusive.<\/p>\n<p>Salk first developed an injectable vaccine in the mid-1950s. It was then tested in 2 million children in what Petri and Donlan call a \u201cherculean\u201d effort. \u201cToday,\u201d they write, \u201cthe faith in, and support of, scientific research by the American public is, arguably, founded on the polio vaccine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read the full article in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/newsroom.uvahealth.com\/2020\/05\/13\/in-victory-over-polio-hope-for-the-battle-against-covid-19\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">UVA Newsroom, 5\/13\/20<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UVA Health&#8217;s Bill Petri, MD, PhD, is developing a vaccine for COVID-19. For much of the 20th century, summer was \u201cpolio season,\u201d and people were accustomed to seeing swimming pools and movie theaters closed to stave off the latest epidemic. Shaking hands was off limits, and even touching money was perilous. The ever-present threat of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2566,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-2564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-highlights","tag-delete"],"acf":false,"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>In Victory Over Polio, Hope for the Battle Against COVID-19 - Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/bims\/in-victory-over-polio-hope-for-the-battle-against-covid-19\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In Victory Over Polio, Hope for the Battle Against COVID-19 - Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"UVA Health&#8217;s Bill Petri, MD, PhD, is developing a vaccine for COVID-19. 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