As the initial round of distribution for the Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines begin, we at PCPP wanted to take a look back into the origins and history of vaccines through twelve powerful images. From smallpox to polio and HPV, this article takes a look at the milestones scientists and researchers have accomplished along the way, and the tremendous amount of work that remains to be done in the development of vaccine technology. Continue scrolling to view the images below and learn about their historical significance for modern medicine.

1. This image depicts British physician, Dr. Edward Jenner, injecting a young boy named James Phipps with the first round of Jenner’s Smallpox vaccine. While smallpox inoculation was developed previously by Chinese practitioners in the 15th century, the method they used was unconventional and involved taking the smallpox scabs of an infected individual and inserting it into a healthy individual (NCBI). Thus, Jenner is credited with creating the first “safe and reliable version” around 1796 (TIME).

2. During the 1920s, the Metropolitan Life Insurance company (now MetLife) encouraged diphtheria immunization across New York state. The company’s anti-diptheria campaign came as a result of one MetLife statistician’s findings that childhood illnesses such as diphtheria “cost the American economy about $200,000,000 a year in lost parental wages and medical care” (The College of Physicians of Philadelphia). This image illustrates children in line waiting to receive their vaccination from school nurses (The College of Physicians of Philadelphia).

Image Credit: ©The College of Physicians of Philadelphia

3. Here, we see a scientist preparing an injection of the rabies vaccine (The College of Physicians of Philadelphia). The first anti-rabies vaccination administered to a human was performed on July 6th, 1885, when French microbiologist, Louis Pasteur, injected 9 year-old Joseph Meister with the vaccine after he was bitten by an infected dog. Pasteur was a renowned scientist and pioneer, credited with his discoveries related to pasteurization, microbial fermentation, and the principles of vaccination (UFMC Pueblo).

4. This photograph captures Peter Salk receiving the polio vaccine from his father, Jonas Salk in 1953. Jonas Salk was an American virologist and medical researcher, credited with developing one of the first successful Polio vaccines (Salk). In addition to injecting Peter, Salk administered the vaccine to his wife, two other sons, and himself at a time when the vaccine was still experimental (The College of Physicians of Philadelphia).

5. Pearl Kendrick was a 20th century American bacteriologist credited with co-developing the first pertussis, or “whooping cough” vaccine alongside public health scientist, Grace Eldering, and chemist, Loney Gordon. As a woman working in science during the 1930s, Kendrick was constricted to the area of public health which was one of the few fields that allowed female scientists during that time. During this era, public health was seen as “compatible with the ideology of womanhood” as its subsections included a focus on maternal and child health and was therefore regarded as “a legitimate way for middle-class women to participate in public life” (NCBI). Following the creation of Kendrick, Eldering, and Gordon’s whooping cough vaccine, the rate of pertussis in the United States fell by 75% in the first 15 years and has continued to decline since (TIME).

6. In many developing countries, the implementation and distribution of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine remains low, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine. A variety of factors contribute to this disparity, including cost, limited knowledge, and a negative societal perception of the vaccine. This image from 2007 depicts children participating in a HPV vaccination campaign at their school in Vietnam (NCBI). Between 2006 and 2010, the Vietnam National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology and the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health came together to provide vaccine demonstrations to 11-year old females within school and health center-based settings (The College of Physicians of Philadelphia). Because the vaccine was recommended for younger age groups and those at risk of developing cervical cancer if they contracted HPV, the campaign targeted female school children for which there would be funding available through educational programs and minimal prior skepticism of the vaccine (Kamimura et al.).

7. In the 2014 progress report on the Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP), the humanitarian aid organization, UNICEF, found that the rate of vaccinations is slowing with large gaps in the coverage of children who are often the most vulnerable group. In this image, we see a woman preparing for her child to be vaccinated in the Sadar Shah village in Pakistan. According to UNICEF, vaccinations are crucial to preserving the health of children under five against life threatening diseases and save “up to three million lives a year” (UNICEF).

8. In this image taken in 2010, we see a woman being injected with the Meningococcal vaccine used to prevent Neisseria meningitidis. Developed in collaboration with governmental entities, NGOs, and corporations, this vaccine was distributed throughout the African meningitis belt, which stretches from Senegal to Ethiopia across 26 countries, between 2010 to 2011 to reduce the epidemic related deaths and disabilities in this region. According to The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, by 2014, “meningococcal deaths were at their lowest level in 10 years” (The College of Physicians of Philadelphia)

9. The British company, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), has taken a unique approach to democratizing the pharmaceutical industry by implementing changes that will ultimately transform the way this lucrative trade operates for good. By removing the patent protection from pharmaceutical drugs when operating in third world nations with lenient intellectual property laws, GSK has been able to lower their prices while ensuring a balance in “scientific progress, social impact, and [their] profit motive.” This image depicts a healthcare worker getting ready to administer a vaccine at the Ba Kwasumba Health Centre in the Kasai Oriental Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (Fortune).

10. This image brings us to the current climate in which the United States has begun administering the Pfizer Covid vaccine to healthcare workers at distribution sites across the country. Here, we see emergency department nurse, Barbara Neiswander, receiving her shot at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C. on December 14th, 2020 in the presence of Health and Human Services Secretary (left), Alex Azar (CNBC).

11. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were approved by the FDA and began being distributed across high-risk groups including healthcare workers and the elderly, beginning December of 2020. The quick development and roll-out of this new vaccine has inspired some skepticism about the vaccine’s safety among Americans, particularly in communities of color who have historically been test subjects for unsafe vaccines and targets for medical malpractice. Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett (right) who is one of two scientists credited with developing the Moderna vaccine, and Dr. Anthony Fauci (left), the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical advisor to the president, are only two of many public health experts who have championed the safety of the coronavirus vaccine and necessity of a rapid and mass vaccination effort across every American community.

12. While the United States hopes to vaccinate “roughly 50 million people across the US...by February,” it will take at least another ten months before the country reaches herd immunity by way of vaccination according to Business Insider. Because each state controls how the vaccines are distributed within their jurisdictions, we are seeing an “uneven rollout across the country,” despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) providing clear recommendations on how the drug should be administered (Business Insider). Currently, the United States estimates that a quarter of the population will be vaccinated by spring of 2021, however the rollout to the general public will only truly begin in late April of this year.

Works Cited

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