Albert Sabin

Albert Bruce Sabin (Białystok, August 26, 1906 – Washington D.C., March 3, 1993) was a Polish-born American virologist. Of Jewish origin (his name was originally Albert Saperstein) he had to flee in 1921 from anti-Semitism.

In 1931, in the USA, Sabin obtained a medical degree from New York University. Later, he arrived at the Cincinnati Children's Hospital (United States) in 1939. There he saw the terrible cases of children attacked by poliomyelitis and studied it, and discovered that it was transmitted orally.

Jonas Edward Salk had found a vaccine against all three types of polio virus, but it had the drawback of being intramuscular. Sabin developed an oral vaccine that was given to children in a sugar cube. It began to be used in 1957.

Sabin declined to profit financially from his discovery.

The virus is transmitted by the fecal-oral route from person to person, which is why it spreads spontaneously in areas with low resources and poor hygienic conditions. The administration of the vaccine is carried out orally, in the form of drops, which is why coverage of the exposed population (children up to 6 years of age) is easy and at a low peak cost. .