When Russian and American scientists worked together on vaccines
HOW COLD WAR RIVALS WORKED TOGETHER AND SUCCEEDED IN DEVELOPING POLIO, SMALLPOX VACCINES
On August 11, Russia launched its coronavirus vaccine, dubbed the “Sputnik V”.
The vaccine’s name is a throwback to the time when Russia sent the first man-made satellite to space, on October 4, 1957. It sparked a space race which was won by the US when it put a man on the Moon, 13 years later, on July 20, 1969.
It was the height of a bitter Cold War between the two superpowers. In the Sixties, the US and the former Soviet Union threatened to nuke each other. Their thorny relations nearly led to an all-out war of mutuallyassured destruction (MAD).
The enmity culminated in the Cuban Missile Crisis. The 13-day confrontation between the two superpowers in 1962 was a fallout of the deployment of Soviet ballistic missile in Cuba.
But in the midst of this, US and Russian scientists — experts in virology — also worked together on at least two vaccines that helped saved the world.
Secret collaboration
Top virologists from the two countries secretly collaborated to develop vaccines against polio and smallpox — two major infectious diseases that afflicted mankind those days.
The oral polio vaccine given to children came directly out of the US-Russian collaboration, according to the open-access peerreviewed Public Library of Science (PLOS) Journal of Neglected Tropical Diseases.
The paper, published in 2017, shows other US-Russian joint efforts in the medical field, a trend we now see with hyper-collaborations between scientists across continents in the face of Covid-19.
Despite their rivalry, US and Russians kept open channels in fields such as sports, arts and literature. Their initiatives focussed on developing, testing and delivering life-saving vaccines against the scourge of polio and smallpox. The joint venture, however, was “mostly clandestine”, according to the journal.
Smallpox was almost completely eradicated and polio was mostly eliminated by their joint efforts often referred as “Cold War vaccine diplomacy”
When did it happen?
In 1956, a year before the Soviet satellite Sputnik was launched, the US State Department and its counterpart in the Soviet Union facilitated links between their virologists.
Who were the scientists involved?
US was represented by Dr. Albert Sabin Two virologists represented the Soviet Union - Dr. Mikhail Chumakov and Dr Anatoli Smorodintsev. They collaborated in producing the oral polio vaccine (OPV).
The production was made on a such a gigantic scale that it allowed them to test the drug on millions of Soviet citizens. That collaboration took place under the watchful eyes of a suspected KGB (erthwhile Russian spy agency) operative.
What happened then?
In 1956, Russian virologists visited Sabin in his Cincinnati Children’s Hospital research lab and invited him to their country. Sabin accepted the invitation, After two intensive FBI interrogations, Sabin was able to travel to Leningrad and Moscow in June 1956. He spent a month in Russia meeting with scientists, giving lectures, and all the time lobbying for his vaccine. Within two years, a shipment of Sabin’s polio virus strains arrived in the Soviet Union on dry ice.
What about vaccine trials?
The Sabin vaccine was scaled up and produced in Chumakov’s laboratory. Clinical testing required him to bypass the then-obstructionist Soviet Minister of Health and go directly to the Kremlin leadership for largescale trials.
Through the efforts of Sabin and Chumakov, the vaccine was tested initially on millions of school children. Subsequently, it was also given to young adults.
What is significance of the oral polio vaccine (OPV)?
In the first half of the 20th century polio epidemics periodically crippled many parts of the world, including US cities. Children were especially vulnerable, but the disease also struck adults, including US president Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1921. On October 6, 1956, the American virology expert Dr. Sabin announced that his live-virus OPV is ready for mass testing. It soon supplanted the Salk vaccine.
Dr. Sabin gave his three strains of “attenuated” virus to Russian virologists, Dr. Mikhail Chumakov (founder of Chumakov Institute of Poliomyelitis and Viral Encephalitides), and his wife Dr. Marina Voroshilova.
Dr. Chumakov vaccinated himself, though it was intended primarily for children. His wife, Dr. Voroshilova gave it to their three sons and several nieces and nephews (their three sons are virologists in Russia).
It was then that Dr. Chumakov managed to persuade a senior Soviet official, Anastas Mikoyan, to proceed with wider trials. in 1961, after it was proved safe in the USSR, the US kicked off oral polio vaccinations.
Today, the oral polio vaccines are the predominant vaccine used in the fight to eradicate polio. OPV is a more convenient form, given as liquid drops via the mouth.
What was the role of the WHO then?
A representative of the World Health Organisation (WHO, founded in 1948), confirmed the safety of the trials and the vaccine’s ability to prevent polio. The vaccine has now been used to stop 99 per cent of polio transmission in most places, except in a few areas of the world.
What else came out of the Russian-US collaboration?
Freeze-drying of vaccines became the standard from this point on. Following the licensure of the polio vaccine, Soviet scientists developed a unique process for preserving the smallpox vaccine in harsh environments.
This enabled the production of hundreds of millions of doses of freeze-dried vaccine.
What was the significance of this invention by Russian scientists?
This freeze-drying of vaccines proved to be a major breakthrough in the effectiveness of vaccines and their widespread distribution across the world, even in harsh environments. It was considered a key enabling technology to the campaign that eradicated smallpox by 1977, led by American public health physician D.A. Henderson.
What is the relevance of their collaboration in the time of Covid?
Today, millions of doses of the coronavirus vaccine had been assured for low and middle-income, thanks to donations from humanitarian and philanthropic platforms like GAVI, the vaccine alliance. This will ensure that even poor countries will have access to whatever vaccine may eventually be licensed for use.
How else did the Russian and US scientists collaborate to face a common problem?
From the 1980s, joint US– Russian health activities continued, with a major focus on tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS prevention, as well as the prevention of other sexually transmitted diseases. In 2009, a Bilateral Presidential Commission (BPC) between the US and Russia was established, which included joint cooperation in the areas of polio eradication, malaria control, studies on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) related to alcohol and tobacco consumption, and expanding the use of mobile phone technology for maternal health care.
The BPC was subsequently strengthened in 2011 through a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace public–private task force.