And now we have Part 3 of our weekly series on the history of epidemic and disease prevention in Taiwan. Last week, we looked at how milk distributors, nurses, and other people on the ground drastically improved public health in the 20th century. Tonight, in Part 3, we turn to another cornerstone of the national health care system, and that’s vaccines. Today most Taiwanese get vaccinated for at least 10 diseases in the course of childhood. It’s a vaccination program made possible through decades of research. Join us as we go back over half a century, for a deep dive into Taiwan’s immunization history. In 1952, at the advice of the WHO, the now-defunct Taiwan Provincial Government and National Taiwan University established a vaccine research and manufacturing facility. At the facility, researchers injected lab rats with encephalitis-causing bacteria to stimulate their immune systems to produce antibodies. They then extracted brain tissue from the rats to develop all sorts of vaccines. Lee Ching-yunMedical researcherThey would inject the Japanese encephalitis virus into the brain of a live rat so it would contract the disease. Later, if you killed it and extracted its brain, you could make 1 cc of vaccine. If you wanted 10,000 cc of vaccine, you would need 10,000 rats. Lee Ching-yun is a key figure in the history of Taiwan’s vaccine development. He was born in 1927 and graduated from NTU’s College of Medicine. While working at NTU Hospital’s pediatric ward, he encountered cases of polio, Japanese encephalitis and measles on a daily basis. He came to realize that only through researching vaccines and starting with prevention could diseases be put to rest.Lee Ching-yunMedical researcherAt one point, there was a diphtheria outbreak. Many people died in the emergency room. During the polio outbreak, hospital rooms everywhere were filled with children stricken with polio. There were children with respiratory paralysis who couldn’t breathe, so they had to rely on an iron lung. We only had one iron lung, and treatment is very long for each patient. When the next patient showed up, they couldn’t be treated in time, and doctors could only watch as they died. To save these children, Lee begun studying viruses in 1958 at Taipei’s U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit 2. In 1967, after five years of research and human trials, the team successfully produced a Japanese encephalitis vaccine. Starting 1968, Taiwan launched a comprehensive vaccination program for all children aged two and under. This caused the number of Japanese encephalitis cases to finally begin to decline. In the 1970s, public health officials would visit rural communities to vaccinate children for Japanese encephalitis, cowpox and other diseases. Lee Ping-ingPhysicianIn the past, children would be given vaccine shots in the buttocks, because children two and under don''t have developed shoulder muscles. Back then smallpox was a very serious disease, so we all had to inject vaccines several times. The body has a strong reaction to the smallpox vaccine in the area around the injection, so in most cases it would leave a scar. Back when Taiwan was an agrarian society, it was common to see polio-stricken children limping along on crutches. The government decided to establish three special education classes in Taitung County’s Beinan Township for children with polio to continue their education, while undergoing rehabilitation. Conservative estimates say that at its peak, polio infected 700 people in one year.In 1958, Taiwan began administering polio vaccines developed by U.S. medical researcher Jonas Salk. In 1963, imports began for a newer variant developed by U.S. researcher Albert Sabin. Government measures required all newborn children to be vaccinated, which drastically cut down the number of polio infections. By 2000, polio was officially eradicated in Taiwan. Lee Ping-ingPhysicianAround the 1930s and 1940s, people could be cruel toward children with polio, because they were afraid that they could spread polio to others. They would send children to the outlying islands and isolate them from society. This method of dealing with the disease caused widespread panic. Sometime in the 1940s, Salk and Sabin separately developed polio vaccines. The emergence of these two polio vaccines was a major contribution to human health. Hepatitis B infections through blood transfusions or during childbirth were common. After several decades, up to two Taiwanese in 10 was a carrier of the disease. In the 1980s, medical professionals began researching hepatitis and advocating for hepatitis B vaccinations. But these vaccines met unprecedented public opposition, as they needed to be given to newborns.Lu Chun-yiPhysicianWhen this vaccine was first being rolled out, it was met with very great resistance. Many people questioned the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine. There were ev...
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