SOMERSET —Ken Halverson, Somerset, remembers that when he was a
child he was not allowed to go swimming in public pools because
it was believed that was how polio spread. “It was terrible —
some of my friends had it and they still limp, all these years
later,” he said. For years polio was still found in four
countries. But as of Friday India has gone one year without a
reported new case of the disease. “It’s wonderful news,”
Halverson said. “Polio is being wiped out as a result of Rotary
International, the Gates Foundation and the other partners.” It
is almost impossible to exaggerate the terror posed by polio at
the time. Parents were afraid that their children would be
stricken — possibly killed or condemned by paralysis to live
inside iron-lung machines. From 1942 to 1955 the polio virus
killed and crippled thousands. Then in the early 1950s the first
polio vaccine was developed by Dr. Jonas Salk and a team of
scientists at the University of Pittsburgh. Within five years
polio was all but wiped out in the