Hillary Koprowsky

Jonas Salk became a God in America for creating the first Polio vaccine. Albert Sabin became world famous as the father of Oral Polio Vaccine.

Koprowski, the pioneer of Polio vaccination is a forgotten man. 

The day God wanted that Polio should vanish from the face of earth.

Hillary Koprowski was standing on the pier on the shores of Italy waiting for the boat that would take him abroad and to freedom.

Hillary was a Polish Jew. From the September of 1939, the day Germans attacked Poland he had been running for his life.

Before that day, life was so cool. He was studying Medicine in the university of Warsaw and learning Piano in the biggest music academy in Warsaw. That August in 1939, he had become a doctor, married his classmate Dr Irene and now his wife was pregnant.

Then there was this news of war. It was unbelievable. His life till then was so routinely thorough. But soon Gestapos arrived and picked up his piano teacher. He was beaten to death. His fault, he was born as a Jew.

Hillary and his family fled east towards Russia. There they learned that Russia had already joined with Germans. As they rushed back home, Warshaw was totally decimated except the occasional rumble of German military vans.
So the family divided into two. His pregnant wife left for France where she had a relative. She can safely deliver her baby there.

Hillary and his mother left for Italy. The train was heavy with the boot sounds of Nazi Gestapos who would randomly pick up a passenger. If he was found to be a Jew, he would be packed into a cattle van and promptly sent to Auswitz.*

Hillary’s mother was a dentist. In fact, in the 1910 she was the first dentist of Russia. She belonged to a family of 8 in which there were 5 dentist, one doctor and a nurse.
..
Both mother and son arrived in Rome. Hillary had to join a music school to give piano lessons for earning his livelihood. But then Mussolini joined Hitler and Italy became difficult for every jew not to speak of refugees like Koprowski.

( Pic: Hillary Koprowski, an innovative scientist, a director of a research institute, a classical pianist, a composer of music, a connoisseur of art, and a polyglot world traveler. )

The music academy where Koprowski had joined used regularly to perform in the Brazil embassy. The Consul General was so enamored with Hillary’s piano skill that he immediately issued him visa for Brazil.

Brazil seemed to be safe haven away from the second World War.
So on the sixth of May, 1940 Hillary and his mother boarded a boat that would take him to France and then to freedom.

On the boat a military officer checked their passport. He ticked of his mother but stopped Hillary.
” Young man, only today Mussolini has promulgated that no young man of military age can leave country. So get down. You will be drafted for army.”
Hillary’s mother cried, shrieked and requested the officer,” How can a old woman survive abroad without a male escort?”
The officer was restless. He looked at his watch. He had a lunch appointment.
” I will take a decision after lunch.”
Then he looked piercingly at Hillary and said,” Young man you better vanish before I came. Otherwise it will be your bad luck.”

But God that day has decided that Polio should be eradicated from the face of earth.
So the officer was late that day. And the boat sailed on schedule without waiting for the arrival of the Italian immigrant officer. Both Hillary and his mother left Italy for ever.

Rio at the peak of Second World War was difficult. Food was scarce, inflation was high. And Job was nil for an immigrant like Koprowski. He had a family with an infant son to feed. Nobody was interested in his Polish medical degree. Rather his piano lessons would get him few concerts. his doctor wife could manage an engagement as a nurse and the family could thrive.

Then Hillary came across this work at the Rockefeller foundation of Rio. The foundation was trying to make a live vaccine against Yellow fever. Handling live Yellow fever virus was the most dangerous thing in the world. There was no cure. Every now and then there would be an accidental exposure and the lab would be short of one staff. Hillary was glad to take the risk. His job was to produce a fully attenuated strain of the live virus. 

Every cloud has a silver lining. Soon Hillary would perfect the art and science of attenuation of live viruses despite the enormous risk it involved. This expertise helped him get a transfer to the yellow fever service at New York.

In the Leaderly laboratory in New York, Dr Hillary Koprowski was successful in attenuating the live Polio Virus in the rat brain. He had tried these attenuated strains in monkeys without any side effect. So in January 1948, Dr Hillary Koprowski grounded the brain of one such infected rat in an ordinary kitchen blender and drank the thick, cold grey, soup himself. He did not manifest any side effect.

With that sip, Dr Koprowski a virologist did the first human clinical trial of the Oral Polio vaccine long before anyone else. Next he tried his OPV on 19 inmates of a mental Asylum. The result was positive.

Salk’s killed Polio vaccine was tried in 1955. Sabin’s OPV got approval in 1960. Long before both of them, Koprowski had successfully tried OPV on human beings.

In the pre-vaccination era of 1940s, polio presented a terrifying reality. Young children, seemingly healthy one day, could wake up paralyzed the next. The disease, often coinciding with teething, earned the chilling moniker ”Teething Paralysis”. Soon the paralysis would creep upwards to affect the lungs. If the child did not die, he would be disabled for the rest of his life.  Those days of beggars with paralysed and deformed bodies crowding in front of temples have become history thanks to the polio vaccine.

Polio affected the legs first. but sooner or later it would paralyse the rib cage of these children. They would not be able to breathe on their own. These children had to live inside a huge metal contraption called Iron Lung. The Iron Lung generated negative pressure that would suck air into their lung. pic below.

Eradication of Poliomyelitis from the face of earth is one of the most successful interventions of mankind. Our world will ever remain grateful to Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin who had created the two Polio Vaccine that helped us in eradicating the virus.

Jonas Salk’s Inactivated Polio Vaccine (IPV): In 1955, Salk’s killed polio vaccine marked a turning point. This injectable vaccine, meticulously developed through meticulous inactivation of the poliovirus, demonstrated significant efficacy in clinical trials. Its nationwide rollout in the United States significantly reduced polio cases, cementing Salk’s place as a scientific hero.

Albert Sabin’s Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV): Recognizing the limitations of injectable vaccines in resource-limited settings, Sabin focused on developing an oral, live-attenuated vaccine. Licensed in 1960, his OPV offered several advantages: ease of administration, mass vaccination potential, and the induction of herd immunity. These benefits contributed significantly to the global decline of polio cases.

*Hilary Koprowski’s Pioneering Role:* While Salk and Sabin are often lauded for their contributions, Hilary Koprowski’s crucial role deserves recognition. His early work on live-attenuated polio vaccines (1948) laid the foundation for Sabin’s successful OPV. Although his vaccine was ultimately not used, Koprowski’s pioneering research paved the way for the oral route of administration, a cornerstone of global eradication efforts.

Even Sabin was of the opinion that OPV should be named as Sabin-Koprowski OPV.

Jonas Salk became a God in America for creating the first Polio vaccine. Albert Sabin became world famous as the father of Oral Polio Vaccine. But Koprowski, the pioneer of Polio vaccination is a forgotten man

After losing the OPV to Albert Sabin, Hillary Koprowski moved on to create the first tissue culture vaccine for rabies, the Human Diploid Cell Rabies vaccine. It drastically reduced the number of rabies injections from 14 to the modern schedule of 5 and is still being followed. he is also credited with the Rubella vaccine. He also pioneered in creation of Monoclonal antibody and cancer genetics. A PMC article in memory of the genius Hillary Koprowski is given below

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3719820

But nobody remembers him as the creator of the first Oral Polio vaccine.