Vaccine Roll-Out: How People Have Been Inoculated Through the Ages

Throughout history, humans have developed and rolled out vaccines against deadly diseases, from influenza to polio. As Europe enters yet another lockdown, people are hoping 2021 runs smoother.

COVID-19 has killed more than 1.6 million people worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation, but vaccines are offering hope. 

Check out Sputnik’s gallery to see how they have developed throughout history.

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© AFP 2023 / Central Press

The Windmill Girls, showgirls from the Windmill Theatre in London, are vaccinated against influenza on 12 September 1963.

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© AFP 2023 / Intercontinentale

Nurse Marie Josette Francou vaccinates people against cholera in Mong Duc, Indochina on 10 October, 1953.

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© AP Photo

In this photo from 14 April, 1947, a long line snakes its way toward the entrance of Morrisania Hospital in New York's Bronx, where doctors inoculate locals against smallpox.

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© AFP 2023 / Daniel Janin

French reporter Dominique Faget receives the flu vaccine at the headquarters of Agence France-Presse in Paris on 15 September 1976.

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© Sputnik / V. Baranovskiy

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A flu vaccination in a factory in Leningrad, USSR, in 1977.

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© AP Photo

Taken on 16 August, 1957, this photo shows Dr. Joseph Ballinger giving Marjorie Hill, a nurse at Montefiore Hospital in New York, the first Asian flu vaccine shot administered in the city.

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© AFP 2023

People queue on 1 September 1961 to be vaccinated against cholera in front of a medical centre in Hong Kong.

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© AP Photo / Tony Dejak

Michelle Krebs, 18, reacts as she is vaccinated by school nurse Jill Kuhns, Friday, 8 June, 2001 a Salem High School in Salem, Ohio. Medical personnel planned to give free vaccination shots to 5, 800 students and staff from six area high schools as a precaution after a bacterial meningitis outbreak that killed two teens and made another child sick.

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© AP Photo

Elvis Presley receives a Salk polio vaccine shot from Dr. Harold Fuerst on 28 October, 1956, in New York City.

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© AP Photo

Coggie Pearce, left, and his sister, Debbie, 4, rub their behinds after receiving inoculations of gamma globulin in mass testing of the preventative polio vaccine, 2 July, 1952.

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© AFP 2023

People queue on April 20, 1959 to be vaccinated against smallpox in Singapore. More than 20,000 people were vaccinated in one day. after a small outbreak.

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© Photo : Public domain / U.S. National Archives and Records Administration

A U.S. Navy hospital corpsman, member of a USAID military health team, inoculates a flood refugee against cholera at the refugee centre on Nui Sam mountain, Chau Doc province., 1966