Polio Vaccine — Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin (1955/1961)

The polio vaccine stands as a monumental triumph, slashing a disease that paralyzed over 350,000 children annually in the 1950s to fewer than a dozen wild cases by 2025. Jonas Salk's 1955 inactivated vaccine and Albert Sabin's 1961 oral live-attenuated version created a two-pronged strategy that has pushed poliovirus to the brink of extinction—a 99.9% reduction in cases since the pre-vaccine era. This effort is 30% closer to eradication than #5 Rabies Vaccine's post-exposure success, demonstrating how two complementary vaccines can outpace a single approach.