LIVE POLIO IRUS VACCINES

Large-Scale Practical Trials, Use of Live Poliovirus Vaccine in USSR 581
from A. B. Sabin in the United States. At the
same time, under the guidance of Professor A.
A. Smorodintsev, more than 12,000 persons in
the Latvian SSR were immunized with a live
vaccine prepared in Leningrad from Sabin
strains which had undergone a number of passages
in liver-cell cultures.
The extremely favorable results obtained from
this first mass immunization with live vaccine
in the USSR, which demonstrated that the vaccine
was completely safe, encouraged a number
of Ministries of Health in the Union Republics
to decide to turn to mass immunization with
live antipoliomyelitis vaccine of Soviet manufacture.
These decisions were approved and supported
by the Poliomyelitis Vaccination Committee,
attached to the USSR Ministry of Health,
and by officials of the Ministry.
In the period from March to July 1959 in the
Esthonian, Lithuanian, Kazakh, Latvian, Byelorussian,
and Moldavian SSR, and also partly in
the territory of the RSFSR, large-scale oral
vaccination with live vaccine was successfully
carried out with a coverage of over 3,500,000
persons, mainly in the age group from two
months to 20 years. In Esthonia and the city
of Alma-Ata, age groups up to 40-50 years were
immunized.
The first results of this large-scale vaccination
campaign were discussed at a meeting of the
Presidium of the USSR Academy of Medical
Sciences on 13 May 1959 and at an All-Union
Scientific Conference on Live Vaccine held from
22-25 May 1959 and attended by research workers
from the United States of America, Czechoslovakia,
Hungary, Bulgaria, and China. They
were subsequently discussed at the First International
Conference on Live Poliovirus Vaccines
held in Washington under the auspices of the
Pan American Health Organization/World
Health Organization from 22-26 June 1959.
In May 1959 the Presidium of the USSR
Academy of Medical Sciences noted the great
scientific and practical importance of the work
carried out by the two poliomyelitis institutes
of the Academy in studying live poliovirus vaccine,
and pointed to the need for a further
extension of vaccination with a view to determining
the epidemiological effectiveness of oral
vaccination under various conditions. The question
of studying the stability of vaccinal strains
and their possible interference with other enteroviruses
was also put forward as an urgent task
for research on live vaccine.
Between May 1959 and November 1959, at
the request of Ministries of Health and various
Oblast Departments of Health, extensive work
was continued on peroral immunization with
live vaccine produced in the Institute for the
Study of Poliomyelitis of the USSR Academy
of Medical Sciences. The total number of persons
vaccinated with the live vaccine by 30
December 1959 exceeded 15,200,000. Immunization
was carried out in all republics except
Turkmenia (see Table 1). In addition,
TABLE 1. PROVISIONAL DATA ON THE NUMBER
OF PERSONS IN THE USSR VACCINATED WITH THE
LIVE ANTI-POLIOMYELITIS VACCINE BY 30 DECEM-
BER 1959 (TO THE NEAREST THOUSAND)
RSFSR 3,310,000
Ukraine 2,378,000
Kazakhstan 1,590,000
Uzbekistan 2,200,000
Byelorussia 540,000
_
Georgia
730,000
Azerbaidzhan
Moldavia
Lithuania
Latvia
1Kirghizia
Tadzhikistan
Armenia
Turkmenia
Esthonia
Total
770,000
380,000
547,000
480,000
500,000
380,000
700,000
695,000
15,200,000
Note: The total population in the areas covered
by the inoculation campaign is about 65,000,000
persons.