sentences:  At its peak in the 1940s and 1950s, polio would paralyze or kill over half a million people worldwide every year.The fear and the collective response to these epidemics would give rise to extraordinary public reaction and mobilization spurring the development of new methods to prevent and treat the disease and revolutionizing medical philanthropy.Although the development of two polio vaccines has eliminated poliomyelitis in all but three countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria), the legacy of poliomyelitis remains in the development of modern rehabilitation therapy and in the rise of disability rights movements worldwide.