strange
How the USSR helped Japan defeat a deadly virus
SCIENCE & TECH JAN 27 2021 OLEG YEGOROV
The most effective vaccine against polio was invented by an American scientist, but tested in the USSR, despite the Cold War. And it is to Moscow that the Japanese government appealed for help after mothers fearful for their children took to the streets to stage protests.
Japanese newsreels from 1961 show long waiting lines at vaccination stations. Worried-looking women are holding babies in their arms and older children stand next to their parents, while members of medical center staff are recording everyone who has received the vaccine. The vaccine was not injected, but taken orally: Children swallowed the medicine from spoons and were no longer able to catch poliomyelitis (commonly known as polio) - a dangerous disease that affects the gray matter of the spinal cord and can cause paralysis of the limbs and even cause death.
The polio vaccine was long awaited in Japan - 13 million doses were imported from the Soviet Union in the summer of 1961. Prior to that, outraged mothers, fearing for the wellbeing of their children, had protested in the streets for months and besieged the Ministry of Health and Welfare - the government was very reluctant to buy the vaccine from Moscow.
https://www.rbth.com/science-and-tech/333327-ussr-japan-polio-vaccine