A Brief History of Vaccination

Vaccine research can raise challenging ethical questions, and some of the experiments carried out for the development of vaccines in the past would not be ethically acceptable today. Vaccines have saved more human lives than any other medical invention in history. 


Scroll on to take a journey through the last millennium to see how these extraordinary discoveries and achievements have changed our lives.

In 1721, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu brought smallpox inoculation to Europe, by asking that her two daughters be inoculated against smallpox as she had observed practice in Turkey.

In 1774, Benjamin Jesty makes a breakthrough. Testing his hypothesis that infection with cowpox – a bovine virus which can spread to humans – could protect a person from smallpox

In May 1796, English physician Edward Jenner expands on this discovery and inoculates 8-year-old James Phipps with matter collected from a cowpox sore on the hand of a milkmaid. Despite suffering a local reaction and feeling unwell for several days, Phipps made a full recovery.

In 1885, Louis Pasteur successfully prevents rabies through post-exposure vaccination. The treatment is controversial. Pasteur has unsuccessfully attempted to use the vaccine on humans twice before, and injecting a human with a disease agent is still a new and uncertain method. 

Pasteur is not a medical doctor. But, despite the risk, he begins a course of 13 injections with patient Joseph Meister, each containing a stronger dose of the rabies virus. Meister survives and later becomes the caretaker of Pasteur’s tomb in Paris.

From 1918 to 1919, the Spanish Flu pandemic kills an estimated 20–50 million people worldwide, including 1 in 67 United States soldiers, making an influenza vaccine a US military priority. Early experiments with influenza vaccines are carried out: the US Army Medical School tests 2 million doses in 1918, but results are inconclusive.

In 1939, bacteriologists Pearl Kendrick and Grace Eldering demonstrate the efficacy of the pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine. The scientists show that vaccination reduces the rates at which children get sick from 15.1 per 100 children to 2.3 per 100.

By 1945, the first influenza vaccine is approved for military use, followed in 1946 by an approval for civilian use. The research is led by doctors Thomas Francis Jr and Jonas Salk, who both go on to be closely associated with the polio vaccine.


From 1952–1955, the first effective polio vaccine is developed by Jonas Salk and trials begin. Salk tests the vaccine on himself and his family the following year, and mass trials involving over 1.3 million children take place in 1954.

In 1967, the World Health Organization announces the Intensified Smallpox Eradication Programme, which aims to eradicate smallpox in more than 30 countries through surveillance and vaccination. Eradication means more than the elimination of a disease in a single area – WHO defines it as the “permanent reduction to zero of a specific pathogen, as a result of deliberate efforts, with no more risk of reintroduction”. 

In 1971 the measles vaccine (1963) is combined with recently developed vaccines against mumps (1967) and rubella (1969) into a single vaccination (MMR) by Dr Maurice Hilleman.

In 1978 a polysaccharide vaccine that protects against 14 different strains of pneumococcal pneumonia is licensed, and in 1983 it is expanded to protect against 23 strains.

From 1970s to 1980s in the USA, whooping cough cases hit an all-time low in 1976. But the success of the pertussis vaccine is hampered by a decline in uptake: with so few whooping cough cases, fears about rare but serious side effects of the whole-cell vaccine start to outweigh fears of the disease itself.

In 1995 Anne Szarewski leads a team who outline the role of human papillomavirus (HPV) in cervical cancer detection and screening, and researchers begin work on an HPV vaccine. 


HPV viruses are very common, often with minimal symptoms, but high-risk HPV strains can go on to cause other medical conditions, particularly cervical cancer. Szarewski goes on to be principal investigator in the development of the bivalent HPV vaccine.

In 2006 the first vaccine for Human Papillomavirus (HPV) is approved. HPV vaccination goes on to become a key part of the effort to eliminate cervical cancer.

The World Health Assembly welcomes the R&D Blueprint, a global strategy and preparedness plan that allows the rapid activation of research and development activities during epidemics. Its aim is to fast-track the availability of effective tests, vaccines and medicines that can be used to save lives and avert large-scale crises. 

In 2019, the malaria vaccine pilot implementation is launched in Ghana, Malawi and Kenya. The RTS/S vaccine is the first vaccine that can significantly reduce the deadliest and most prevalent strain of malaria in young children, the group at highest risk of dying from the disease. 

On 30 January, 2020 the WHO Director General declares the outbreak of novel coronavirus 2019 (SARS-CoV-2) to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. On 11 March, WHO confirms that COVID-19 is a pandemic.

Effective COVID-19 vaccines are developed, produced and distributed with unprecedented speed, some using new mRNA technology. In December 2020, just 1 year after the first case of COVID-19 was detected, the first COVID-19 vaccine doses are administered.

WHO calls on Member States to prioritize vaccination of health workers and at-risk groups in lower-income countries, in order to stop severe disease and death, keep health workers safe and reopen societies and economies.

From groundbreaking practices in the 1500s to the new technologies used in COVID-19 vaccines, we have come a long way. Vaccines now help protect against more than 20 diseases, from pneumonia to cervical cancer and Ebola; and in just the last 30 years, child deaths have declined by over 50%, thanks in large part to vaccines. But more must be done.