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On this date the following year, the Bismarck Tribune reported that nearly 30,000 people in Burleigh and Morton counties received their first dose of the new vaccine – all in six hours on a Sunday afternoon, called “Sabin Oral Sunday.” The clinics were open to everyone 3 months and older. Hundreds of volunteers ran 13 vaccination clinics at schools and public buildings in Bismarck, Mandan, Flasher, Glen Ullin, Sterling and Wing. Mobile units brought the vaccine to shut-ins, hospital patients and nursing home residents. Organizers asked for 25 cents per dose, but otherwise, the vaccinations were free.
Polio was mostly stomped out in North Dakota by 1965, with at least two cases in the 1970s. In 1975, the Legislature passed a school immunization law for polio and other diseases. Polio has been eradicated in the U.S. since 1979.
