Polio Virus May Become Extinct

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29908, 23 August 1962, Page 13

Polio Virus May Become Extinct

IN.Z. Press Association — Copyright) MONTREAL, August 22. The time may come when the virus that causes paralytic poliomyelitis will be extinct, according to the discoverer of the first effective polio vaccine. Dr. Jonas Salk.

Dr Salk, who spoke at the international congress for microbiology. in Montreal yesterday, said evidence to date suggested that vaccine was not only protecting people vaccinated but also cutting down the amount of polio virus in circulation, the Canadian Press reported. Studies in the United States. Sweden and other countries had shown that polio vaccines brought about effects “beyond those at. tributable to the number of persons who have been vaccinated ” The frequency of polio had

search for a taxi-driver who may be a smallpox carrier The driver may have caught the disease from James William Orr. aged 15, a missionary’s son who entered the United States from Brazil on August 11. and left eight hours later for Canada. If the driver caught the disease when he carried the family from Idlewild Airport to Grand Central Station, a 40-minute trio, the incubation period would be up this week, possibly today Police soeculated that the driver might be afraid to identify himself because he apparently tried to overcharge the Orrs for the trip to the station. He was promised immunity from any rules violation. In Toronto, where the boy is in hospital, doctors said he was “well on the road to recovery” from smallpox He should be able to leave the hosnita! in about three weeks

declined among non-vaccm-ated as well as vaccinated segments of the population. If vaccine were really having “a community effect,” rather than just an effect on the persons vaccinated, this could mean that the virus itself was being killed off and that vaccination might some dav be unnecessary Dr Salk said the smallpox vi-tis was an example of one that had virtually disappeared from large population groups. The continued absence of smallpox virus in such groups was not necessarily due to continental vaccinations. however because this practice had been abandoned in some countries On the other hand, it was not due to “solid individual immunity.” either, because cases of smallnox were sometimes im'xirted and they infe—ed '“hers ’ Tn New York yesterday p lice and citv health authorities. in a desperate race against time, stepped up their

More than 50 detectives have spent the last three days trying to track the taxi driver down There are more than 38000 taxi drivers in New York City Nearly 6000 vaccinations had been given at city health centres throughout New York by today and at the United States oublic health centre at Idlewild Airport. Many other persons obtained vaccinations from family doctors.

Dozens of small towns in upoer New York State where the train discharged passengers riding with the Oris family on their way to Canada offered free vaccine to their citizens.