The 1952 Polio Epidemic, United States, 3.145 Casualties
Poliomyelitis, more famous under its shorter name Polio, is a disease that is believed to have existed for several thousand years. It’s caused by a virus that infects the respiratory tract, the intestinal canals and eventually the spine, leading to the devastating results of paralysis. The virus mainly affects children and is infamous for claiming the highest number of casualties in the last century.
While polio epidemics were scattered throughout the 20th century, the biggest outbreak of polio occurred in 1952 in which 57.628 cases were reported, 3.145 of them were fatal and 21.269 were left with anything from mild to disabling paralysis. The result of this epidemic lead to a public awareness like never before. Until that year, the cause of polio had been a mystery that baffled both the public and the doctors, and unlike many other epidemics on this list, it was not the IPV mortality that scared the people, but the paralysis and the deformation of their children.
The 1952 polio epidemic lead to the development of the first safe and effective polio vaccine in 1955. The vaccine was created by Dr. Jonas Salk, with the support of the health organization March of Dimes, and he would later on become a national hero for his vaccine development. By 1962, the rate of polio cases dropped from 45.000 to 910.