preface
"I only did one thing in my life, which was to make a little sugar pill."
This is what old Mr. Gu Fangzhou once used to say from humility.
His "little sugar pill", I believe everyone tasted it when they were young, it saved an unknown number of lives and saved many broken families.
It is no exaggeration to say that Mr. Gu can be regarded as the savior of 1.4 billion Chinese people, and he is the object of gratitude of all Chinese people.
Although Mr. Gu has passed away now, his achievements and dedication will always be remembered by the people and immortalized in the long river of history! His departure will be mourned by the people of the whole country!
Horrible polio
Polio, also known as polio, is a very old infectious disease that mainly targets children under the age of 5. Its earliest records date back to around 1350 BC, when an Egyptian stele records a young man with typical polio symptoms.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, polio became the biggest headache in countries around the world, although its fatality rate was not as good as cancer or some incurable diseases, but the science and technology of the time could not detect how it spread, and could only witness in panic that it took one more life after another, or left irreversible disability for life.
Similarly, in the fifties of the last century, polio appeared on the mainland and spread rapidly, causing great harm to countless families.
The first was Nantong, Jiangsu Province, where 1,680 Nantong children were infected in a short period of time, with a fatality rate of 28%, and even those lucky enough to survive were more than 70% likely to become permanently disabled.
The whole of Nantong fell into a dead silence, and parents did not dare to let their children leave their homes, for fear of contracting the terrible disease. Many children who were originally alive and jumping were unfortunately infected and now can only lie on their parents' backs and go to the hospital to seek a glimmer of life, and the entire city is full of depression and despair.
However, the hospital was helpless against the disease, and although the parents knelt in front of the doctor and begged, the doctor could only bitterly express that there was nothing they could do.
At the same time, polio began to spread more widely, and until 1960, between 2.1 and 44,000 children on the mainland were infected with polio every year, and panic continued to spread.
Many parents are reluctant to give up and carry their children around seeking medical treatment, hoping only to bring a glimmer of life, hence the name "backpacker".
Gu Fangzhou, who was in danger
In the face of this infectious disease, which seriously threatens the stable life of the people, the state naturally attaches great importance to it and begins to mobilize excellent doctors across the country to solve this problem. And a young man who had just returned from studying medicine in the Soviet Union also received this task, his name was Gu Fangzhou.
Gu Fangzhou was born in Shanghai, China in 1926, and because his father was a government official, Gu Fangzhou was undoubtedly very fortunate to have the opportunity to receive education compared to other people who were worried about life at the same time.
When he was 5 years old, his father who went to Africa unfortunately passed away due to infectious diseases, leaving his wife and 5 children to rely on each other, which also gave Gu Fangzhou a vision of treating infectious diseases from an early age.
In 1944, Gu Fangzhou was admitted to Peking University School of Medicine in China and joined the Communist Party of China. When he graduated in 1950, Gu Fangzhou felt that his knowledge was not enough to contribute to the development of domestic medicine, so he decided to go to the Soviet Union to learn the most advanced knowledge in the field of virus research.
In 1955, Gu Fangzhou, who returned from school, learned that the country was suffering from polio infestation, so after receiving the task, he began to devote all his energy to the research and development of polio virus vaccine.
Painstaking vaccine development
In 1957, Gu Fangzhou's research on the poliovirus made initial progress, which gave him more motivation, and it provided the basis for future vaccines by isolating the virus from patients' feces and successfully typing it.
In order to better research, Gu Fangzhou and his colleagues went to the mountains of Yunnan to establish the Institute of Medical Biology, although the state strongly supported, it was just a ravine at that time, there was nothing, and even the construction required these scientists to do it themselves.
With this effort, Gu Fangzhou finally succeeded in isolating the polio virus in 1958, a big step forward on the road to success. The next vaccine research and development is actually something that the United States and the Soviet Union can refer to.
However, although the American vaccine is effective, it is too expensive to be used by ordinary people on a large scale, while the Soviet Union's is cheap, but the risk is very large, which is undoubtedly not safe for children to use. However, they are still good reference points to compensate for the shortcomings of new vaccines.
In 1959, Gu Fangzhou, who went to the Soviet Union again with his colleagues to study, ignored the pressure of public opinion and resolutely abandoned the low-cost and high-risk "inactivated vaccine", and chose the "live attenuated vaccine" that was higher risk but could be mass-produced.
After another year of hard work, Gu Fangzhou and his colleagues finally came up with a vaccine sample, but at this time the biggest problem came - human experiments.
Self-nominated "guinea pig"
Even if these vaccines are successfully tested in monkeys or mice, it does not mean that they are 100% effective against humans, and someone must personally test the effect of this vaccine to make a final guarantee.
But if there is a problem with the vaccine, the person who receives the experiment is very likely to be life-threatening, and even if he survives, he will face various risks and even be paralyzed for life.
However, it was this kind of life-and-death decision that Gu Fangzhou took the initiative to stand up and ask to become the first "guinea pig" to experiment with vaccines. Everyone was shocked, and even colleagues were driven by Gu Fangzhou and became the first batch of people to test the medicine by themselves.
After some time, all those involved are safe and sound, which seems to mean that the vaccine was successful? No, Gu Fangzhou they still can't be sure, adults and children have different physiques, and polio mainly occurs in children, and adults are okay does not mean that children are fine.
That is, the vaccine must have children to conduct the experiment. But in the face of this kind of dangerous experiment that will lead their children to death, what parent will allow it? For a while, the experiment came to a standstill, and everyone was helpless.
Gu Fangzhou, who fell into silence, remembered his father and the thousands of children threatened by polio in China, and finally he made up his mind to let his children try medicine!
No one knew how struggling Gu Fangzhou was in his heart at that time, and his own son was likely to die in his hands because of such an action. But if your own children don't eat, then how can you guarantee that thousands of children across the country can eat them?
In the end, Gu Fangzhou made his children the first batch of children to receive the vaccine, and it was his spirit of giving up a small family for everyone that allowed the vaccine to be successfully developed and millions of children were protected from the disease.
After a period of fearful days, looking at the child who was safe and sound, Gu Fangzhou finally let go of his heart and couldn't help crying, which also announced the complete success of vaccine research and development.
In 1961, a large number of vaccines were officially produced, and vaccination began quickly in all cities, especially in the hardest-hit areas, and 4.5 million children were successfully advanced for polio.
"Sugar Pills" came out
Unsatisfied, already successful researchers are trying to solve the final problem of vaccines:
Because the vaccine is liquid, it must be refrigerated, making it difficult to transport it to remote mountainous areas. At the same time, the vaccine tastes bitter, children are unwilling to drink it, and needle injection is easy to cause panic among children.
Although this kind of problem is too small in the face of polio infection, Gu Fangzhou and these researchers still solve these problems warmly.
Gu Fangzhou thought that his son liked to eat sugar, so he moved wisely, divided the cream into sugar pills, and eased the bitter taste of the vaccine with sweetness, so that the "sugar pill vaccine" came out in 1962 and became a childhood memory for many people.
In 1964, the sugar pill vaccine was rolled out nationwide, and the prevalence of polio was successfully curbed, from 4 to 0.016 out of 100,000 children, saving countless children from polio across the country.
Since 1994, no cases of polio caused by indigenous viruses have been detected in mainland China. In 1999, the World Health Organization confirmed that China had eliminated the polio outbreak.
In 2000, the World Health Organization committee officially determined that the virus in China was cut off and China became a polio-free country. At the signing ceremony of the polio eradication confirmation report in China, 74-year-old Mr. Gu Fangzhou signed his name as a representative.
Although in 2016, the sugar pill vaccine completed its mission and was replaced by a better new vaccine, Mr. Gu's contribution is indelible, his research not only saved three generations of Chinese, but also became the sweetness of many people when they were young.
On January 2, 2019, Mr. Gu Fangzhou passed away and was awarded the title of "People's Scientist" on September 17 of the same year, representing the affirmation and respect of the motherland and the people, and the eternal memory of his contribution.
In 2020, Mr. Gu Fangzhou was named "Moving China 2019 Person of the Year", the following is his award speech, which is also the best evaluation of Mr. Gu Fangzhou:
"Sacrificing oneself and being a child, this is not cruelty, it is a healer's benevolence. Come for a big thing, go for a big thing. The merit condensed into a sugar pill is a healing elixir, and it is also a fist and a heart. You are an ark, carrying the children of New China through the scourge of the virus. ”
brief summary
Just like Mr. Zang Kejia said: some people are alive, he is dead; Some people are dead, and he is still alive. Mr. Gu Fangzhou is the latter, although he has passed away, his spirit and contribution will always remain in the hearts of the people, and his story will be passed down from generation to generation, forever praised and inherited by the children of China.