The twenty-one slides below trace polio’s history from its earliest depiction on an ancient stele, through the recognition of the cause of the disease, the race against time to develop a vaccine in the face of an escalating number of epidemics, and the huge effort to rid the world of new polio infections, to a growing awareness of the late effects of the disease, to the establishment by polio survivors of peer support and advocacy groups, and finally to the current and ongoing struggle by Australia’s (and indeed the world’s) polio survivors to have their late-effects symptoms recognised and effectively managed through the provision of specific polio services.

The timeline can also be downloaded as a PDF file: Polio Timeline (File Size: 9.6 MB).