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The epidemic summers, the county’s clinics, and the vaccine campaigns of the 1950s and after.
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On the recommendation of the State Health Officer and Governor Broughton, the State Board of Education kept all North Carolina public schools closed until after September 18 because of the infantile paralysis epidemic. Orange County schools, which Superintendent R. H. Claytor had planned to open September 14, were held back with the rest, though teachers still reported on September 14.
In its annual report, the Orange County chapter of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis said it had spent $500 in direct aid to polio patients and bought a $550 infant-size iron lung, kept for the time being at Watts Hospital.
The month long mandatory quarantine of children sixteen and under, imposed during a polio outbreak in Chapel Hill and the vicinity, was ended, though District Health Officer O. David Garvin asked parents to keep children close to home and discouraged trips to the movies. He and the university physician notified the Veterans' Club and Graham Memorial that they could reopen.
With 12 polio cases counted in the county by early August, Superintendent Glenn T. Proffitt, on the advice of health director O. David Garvin, moved the school opening from September 1 to September 7. After a second postponement the county schools opened on Monday, September 13, 1948, for about 4,000 pupils.
After an emergency conference with six Chapel Hill physicians, District Health Officer O. David Garvin ordered the University swimming pool and all recreational facilities closed, with six polio cases in Chapel Hill and three more in the county. He asked parents to keep children at home or on their own block but did not recommend cancelling University classes or closing nursery schools.
The University of North Carolina called off its football games with Georgia on October 4 and N.C. State on October 11, 1952, because a player and three other students had been stricken with polio.
The Chapel Hill post of the American Legion presented an iron lung, bought for about $1,600, to North Carolina Memorial Hospital, with Congressman Carl T. Durham making the presentation. Hospital director Robert R. Cadmus said the hospital had treated 90 polio patients, two from Orange County, in its first 18 months; it was the hospital's second iron lung.
Local physicians working under the county health department gave the first round of Salk polio vaccine to more than 1,150 Orange County first and second graders. The work began on Monday, April 18, 1955 with about 500 Chapel Hill area children and finished on April 21 with the Hillsboro, Efland and Aycock schools.
People: O. David Garvin
The district health department gave second Salk vaccine doses to children who had their first shot in the spring: in Chapel Hill on July 21 and 22 for pupils of the Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Glenwood, Northside, White Cross and Little Red Schoolhouse schools, and in Hillsboro on July 27, with school buses sent to county schools. Turnout at Hillsboro was low, with only 65 children by 11 a.m.
District health director O. David Garvin asked the Board of County Commissioners for a special appropriation to buy Salk vaccine for schoolchildren and pregnant women who could not pay, after federal vaccine allotments were cut and shots became required for school entry. The board agreed to provide funds if needed but told him to seek March of Dimes money from the county polio chapter first.
The Durham-Orange County Medical Foundation ran a Sunday oral polio vaccine campaign at eight public school feeding stations in Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Hillsborough, Cedar Grove and Efland. A total of 25,679 people took the vaccine on a sugar cube, about 56 percent of the county, with Glenwood School alone serving 5,063; a second dose was set for May 17.
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