Polio Decline

Polio is declining sharply in most of the U.S. for the second year, with abundant evidence that much of the improvement is due to the Salk vaccine. Four months of the "disease year" (since the number of cases reached its annual low around April 1) have passed, and indications are that fewer than 1,900 cases will be reported for the period. This is just half the 3,800 in the same period last year, and less than one-third of the 1951-56 average tally. So far this year no area has reported a major epidemic comparable to Chicago's last year, which was raging by mid-July. Only six states report minor increases.

Most remarkable to U.S. Public Health Service officials is the decline in paralytic as compared with nonparalytic cases. At this time last year, half of all cases were listed as paralytic, one-third as nonparalytic. This year fewer than one-third are paralytic, about half nonparalytic (the rest are unspecified). The overall decline in polio might reflect in part a natural ebb of the disease, but the relative drop in paralytic cases is almost certainly attributable to vaccination.

Even so, only 20 million Americans have so far received the recommended three doses of Salk vaccine, Surgeon General Leroy Burney reported; 48 million others have had one or two shots. Though vaccine is again in brisk demand and short supply, Dr. Burney urged community health officials to plan now for mass inoculation, as soon as vaccine becomes available, of 41 million citizens under 40 who have had no shots at all.

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