Gu Fangzhou
Did you ever eat sugar pills when you were a child? Do you know about infantile paralysis? It has a more widely known name: polio. Once you get polio, it cannot be cured. This terrifying infectious disease swept across the country more than half a century ago. But in the end, it was completely eradicated by a small sugar pill.
In 1955, virologist Gu Fangzhou was urgently appointed to develop a vaccine against polio. Gu Fangzhou led his team to build a laboratory in just nine months amidst the desolate mountains of Huahong Cave in Yunnan province. This laboratory, nestled in the wilderness, marked the beginning of saving tens of thousands of children and millions of families. During the development process, the team encountered natural disasters and had to endure a meager grain ration daily. Tasked with heavy physical labor and demanding mental work, they could not afford to pause their efforts for even a moment. Once, a disturbance occurred in the experimental monkey room; it turned out that a hungry keeper had stolen the monkeys’food and was discovered. It was both infuriating and heartbreaking that people were so hungry that they had to steal the monkeys’ rations.
During the outbreak of polio, Gu Fangzhou led his team in a race against time with death, facing the risks of an immature vaccine.He even tested it on his own child. In a subsequent interview, the virologist talked about this experience, saying, “Even if there was some risk, I had to take it. There was no other way.Otherwise the experiment couldn’t proceed. If you wouldn’t dare to take it, how could you ask others to?” It was precisely because of Gu’s empathy that there is the safety and happiness of hundreds of millions of families today. Fortunately, the experiments achieved success. By the end of 1960, we finally had access to this hard-won vaccine, and the peak of the epidemic receded.
While everyone was elated, a new problem arose: how to transport the vaccine to rural and remote areas while ensuring its viability?At that time, China’s cold chain transportation was underdeveloped, making the storage and delivery of vaccines a great challenge for the researchers. Then, when everyone was at a loss, Gu Fangzhou, who was also feeling helpless, thought of the candies that children love. He encapsulated the liquid vaccine in sugar and milk powder, turning it into sugar pills, and packed them in a thermos flask with ice for low-temperature storage, solving all the storage and transportation problems at once.
The sugar pills were both delicious and convenient, effectively addressing the long-standing polio problem in China. As a result, Gu Fangzhou became affectionately known as the “Sugar Pill Grandpa.”
On July 11, 2000, at the age of 74, Gu Fangzhou, representing his research team, signed the official report confirming the eradication of polio in China. This momentous act marked China’s transition into a polio-free nation.
Source:The Central Committee of the Communist Young League
英本223:杨琴琴 张静静 张馥华
王宇轩 徐 琦 单栋垚
指导教师:唐文丽