Dr. Galina Lipskaya

 Galina Lipskaya

TORGHELE: Today is February 6, 2018. My name is Karen Torghele, and I will be talking by telephone from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta to Dr. Galina Lipskaya, in Moscow, for the Global Health Chronicles Oral History of Polio Project. Dr. Lipskaya is currently the head of laboratory at the Department of Virus-Cell Interactions, Lomonosov Moscow State University. Did I get that right, Dr. Lipskaya?

LIPSKAYA: Yes.

TORGHELE: Okay, great. Thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed for the Polio Oral History Project.

LIPSKAYA: Yeah. I will try to tell something you will be interested in.

TORGHELE: I'm sure you will. First of all, would you tell me a little bit about your background before you came to CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], and how you came to work there?

LIPSKAYA: I wrote it in preparation to our talk. It was that in '80s, we had 00:01:00some meeting in Moscow, an international meeting. And there were people from CDC who were supposed to come, but there was nobody from CDC. But there was [Dr.] Eckard Wimmer from Stony Brook University. And he told me about [Dr.] Olen Kew, who worked in CDC and was very much interested in polio, and that was what I was interested in at that time. He advised me to send a letter to Olen Kew and to discuss probability of my visit to Atlanta and to work in CDC. So I wrote a letter, and Olen responded to that quite soon, and we agreed that I will come to 00:02:00his laboratory. So I came. And for me it was very interesting and, I think, very useful, because at that time Olen's laboratory was already involved in polio project. And so that's how I was there.

TORGHELE: And what year was that, when you first came?

LIPSKAYA: It was 31st of December 1990--

TORGHELE: So you arrived the last day of the year of 1990?

LIPSKAYA: 1990, yes.

TORGHELE: And you were based in Olen Kew's lab. That was in the Respiratory and Enterovirus Branch?

LIPSKAYA: I don't remember the name of the division, but [Dr.] Larry Anderson was the head of the division, and Olen was the head of the laboratory. And he invited me to come, and I came. And, actually, I visited CDC in the '90s for 00:04:00seven years, for three or four months a year.

TORGHELE: So you did that for seven years?

LIPSKAYA: Seven years, yes. And then later on I think that it was [Dr. Stephen L.] Steve Cochi and Olen--they discussed, because I was very much interested in the program, and they decided that it will be good if I will start working in the World Health Organization. So they introduced me there, and then I started to work there.

TORGHELE: So when you first came to the Centers for Disease Control, did you know much about it besides just knowing some people who had worked here?

LIPSKAYA: I would say that I was not very familiar. I knew that it existed, because Eckard Wimmer told me about that, and there were several people from 00:05:00Moscow who came to work there. Somebody came to work for a year, somebody came to work for couple of months. Something like that. So I had some idea, but I did not know anybody personally. And for me, it was a great experience. And it was also a funny thing, because my luggage was lost and I came for three months without anything at all. So I made acquaintance with Olen's staff, and it was very nice because the people were very friendly. And then I started to work there, and I think that it was also very useful, because Olen's lab was better 00:06:00equipped than plenty of other places I visited already in Eastern Europe. So we were quite happy with each other, because Olen understood that I can work on myself and don't need any support or something like that. So we did really good scientific work, and that was very suitable for me because I did not ask anything. I told what I did, and we discussed with Olen the scientific part of my presence at CDC. I think that he was quite satisfied, and I was satisfied as well.

TORGHELE: What can you say about your specific work with polio? Was there a 00:07:00special area that you wanted to especially work in?

LIPSKAYA: The reason for me to be that much interested was that being a student of Moscow State University, I started to be interested in viruses. And one of my interests was polio, because at that time it was not that much polio in the Soviet Union and in Russia, but still before that there was a lot of polio. And in my family, there was my cousin who had polio, and then it was very bad for her. So I just was interested, and that's why I came. I thought about the possibility to learn something.

TORGHELE: Just to go back a little bit, I'm thinking about what might have impacted your visit at that time. Was there any impact of the politics at the time between what was then the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States, and did that change over the years--over the seven years that you would come back and forth?

LIPSKAYA: No, you know, I would say that I was too much scientist to be interested in politics. That's truly, not because I'm shy or anything. I just was not interested in that. I don't think there were some political difficulties in communications between our countries at that time, and besides that we all 00:09:00were interested in polio eradication. At that time already, the program started. It was not very active, but still it was definitely well-known. And for me, it was also interesting, and I think that it was interesting for people from CDC--that they were interested in visiting newly independent states which need a lot of support, because usually they were relying on public health of the Soviet Union, and then the Soviet Union became only part of Russian Federation and then several independent states.

You know, it was necessary to analyze how they have in terms of public health. And the people from CDC visited, and they invited me to go with them, because 00:10:00for them it was difficult, the linguistic problems, and just they did not know people, and I know them. And we visited many countries. And at that time already it was in WHO [World Health Organization], they discussed the problem of European regions to be a single region, and all of the polio things were done under the same practice. We went there, and my role was to analyze public health in these countries, and to decide in which country we can make a WHO laboratory. And this laboratory should be responsible not only for this country where it was 00:11:00organized, but in neighboring countries. It was quite interesting. And I think then [Dr.] Terrance Chorba at that time went with me to Kazakhstan. I went with somebody else to Uzbekistan and then to Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. It was quite interesting, and I think it was quite useful.

TORGHELE: Your language skills must have been a tremendous help.

LIPSKAYA: Yeah.

TORGHELE: Was this, then, the beginning of the Global Polio Lab Network?

LIPSKAYA: Actually it started when I have been already in the European region or WHO European regional office. And then it was necessary--oh, you're asking about 00:12:00Global Laboratory Network?

TORGHELE: Yes.

LIPSKAYA: That was a very good story, because I think that CDC played a great role in organizing the Global Laboratory Network, because there were several types of laboratories organized. The largest one and the most important was Global Laboratory Network. Then it was Regional Laboratory Network, for different regions over the globe. So it was European Regional Laboratory Network. It was Western Pacific, Asian, and things like that. And then in each regional place, they had--in Europe it was very difficult because they had forty-three countries, and I should organize the same amount of laboratories in 00:13:00each country. It should be in each country, because in many countries, there were no polio laboratories at all, and they had no idea what it is and why we need it, and it was quite difficult. But anyway, it was done, and I think that it was a good exercise for them, and for us in Copenhagen [Denmark], where the office for European region was located.

TORGHELE: You mentioned that CDC had a role in the Global Polio Lab Network. Can you say more about that?

LIPSKAYA: Yes, they were definitely--I would say more, because I know from my own experience that when WHO made the decision to organize the Global Polio 00:14:00Initiative, as they call it now--because plenty of things were new for WHO, as well as for us who worked with polio, because it is different things to work with polio in the laboratory or to work in polio in terms of large region and everything. And we actually worked quite well. And for me it was quite interesting, and I think it was quite good for other people, but Global Polio Laboratory Network was responsible for everything. It was the highest level administratively and financially and scientifically, and they were quite good 00:15:00and they were very helpful. And I know from Olen, and I know it also from WHO, that when WHO finally decided to start the polio project, they invited Olen Kew, [Dr.] Mark Pallansch, and they spent the whole summer in Geneva working on trying to create the program for Polio Global Initiative. So it was a great job, and it was very well done, because the global laboratories worked well and regional laboratories worked well. The major problem was in-country 00:16:00laboratories, because in many countries there were no public health people educated enough, and there were necessary trainings, computers, that kind of thing. So it was quite a laborious task, I think.

TORGHELE: It sounds like it. This is so interesting, because it sounds like you went in and started a new laboratory from the ground up. Can you walk us through the steps that you took to get that done? When you went into a new country, say, Uzbekistan, and they had no polio lab there, so how did you get it started? What 00:17:00were the steps you took to get that going from the very beginning?

LIPSKAYA: You know, Uzbekistan was interesting, because it was the place where [Dr.] Albert Sabin visited during his work in Russia, and they were very much interested in polio. And they had a lot of polio, actually, because the problem was that during the Soviet period, all vaccination was conducted with the vaccine produced in Russian Federation. And then it was separately distributed in all other countries. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and when these countries became independent, they were very happy to be independent, but they didn't realize what kind of difficulties they will deal with. And it was really difficult, and there became a lot of poliomyelitis. It was very difficult. For 00:18:00me, it was a terrible experience, because I was already involved in that. It was before CDC. And I sent letters to the public health ministers and everything, and we tried to help them. And we asked them to buy some vaccine, because they could buy vaccine, because they had a lot of support from international organizations like WHO, UNICEF [United Nations Children's Fund] and everything. So it was good, but it was quite difficult.

TORGHELE: And it sounds like there was no organization that dealt specifically with polio before you all went in?

LIPSKAYA: Yeah. I came there and I worked there for some time. Because whenever 00:19:00you visit a place where they have very primitive ideas about what they are supposed to do, you need to stay there at least two or three weeks. First of all, I went into all these places from Copenhagen. And later on I understood that it is not correct, that we should send there some staff from European countries or from Russian Federation, people who are educated enough to teach other people what should be done for a Polio Laboratory Network in terms of polio laboratories, because they had a lot of cases and it was difficult. After all, we succeeded and everything was done, but it took time and effort.

TORGHELE: What were some of the main problems that had to be overcome? You said 00:20:00that you got support from other organizations, like UNICEF and WHO and CDC, but were there problems within each country that had to be overcome?

LIPSKAYA: Within the country?

TORGHELE: Yes.

LIPSKAYA: Yes, there were problems, of course, because the countries started a new life and that was what was difficult. Because before, they did not need that much being on their own, because they were part of a large country. When they became not a part of the large country and they started to depend on their own 00:21:00efforts, it was difficult in the beginning. Later on, in a couple of years, they adjusted. We had a good publication conducted with Olen and, I think, Mark Pallansch, where we analyzed the polioviruses we isolated in these countries, and we described what was this belt of countries which were involved in polio, and who worked with us and with whom we worked, whom we supported, and they applied to us for our--asked for support. So it was like that. It was an interesting time, but it was a difficult time for both them and us. At Moscow State University we were more oriented on science. And I had to do plenty of things which did not represent science, but everyday life, and they needed some 00:22:00practical support. So I think it was okay. There were some difficulties, but it was done.

TORGHELE: I think that one of the things I read about in some of the publications about that time was there were problems with the cold chain, for instance. Is that right? And that when vaccine would arrive, sometimes it was no longer effective because the cold chain had been broken?

LIPSKAYA: Yes, it was difficult, because the cold chain--you know, you need to have vaccine in the cold, and if you come to Uzbekistan or Tajikistan or Turkmenistan or even Ukraine at that time--western Ukraine also was in a 00:23:00difficult situation--you should think how, in what way, you will bring vaccine there. But it was the majority of vaccine came from other organizations--not only from the Soviet Union, because we had our own problems with vaccine, too. But all these countries received support from UNICEF, from other international organizations, and from CDC too, because there was a CDC place, for instance, in Kazakhstan, and I know people who worked there. Because the head was from a Russian Federation, but he lived all the way in the United States and he worked 00:24:00in CDC. So it was organized like that.

TORGHELE: Was there equipment that you had to get and that was hard for you to find, or hard for you to access, for the labs?

LIPSKAYA: You know, still we have money from WHO, because WHO received these monies from Global Laboratory Network, from rich countries, because every country paid to WHO. I am sure you know that they pay some donation. And within these donations you can take something to use for polio.

TORGHELE: What were some of the main pieces of equipment that you used for Polio Lab Network that you had to purchase and implement in the labs?

LIPSKAYA: You know, it was different in different places, because there were some countries--for instance, Eastern Europe, they were much better organized and much better equipped in comparison with newly independent states or from the Soviet Union. Because at that time--you know, when I was at CDC--I witnessed a lot of people coming from newly independent states, and it was very interesting to observe them because they never saw places like Atlanta, they never saw places like CDC. It was interesting, because they were listening for lectures 00:26:00and they were invited by CDC. They came to CDC. It was very interesting for them. Usually it was a higher level, you know, medical persons of each country. And they had very different attitudes to everything. For me, it was interesting also to observe that there was a large difference between public health over the United States and public health over the Soviet Union, in terms of how it was organized.

Of course, it is different countries to different opportunities, different financial support they can provide. And it was funny when these people came, and 00:27:00we all stayed in Villa International, close to CDC, Clifton Road. And when I came to work and I asked them, "Do you find it suitable? Do you find it interesting?" And they told me, "Of course, we find it very interesting, but what we found out also, that we know much more things in comparison with them in other areas of public health." So it was different types of public health in the United States and in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union. So it was interesting. And it was very educational for them, because they not just swallowed whatever they put them into the mouth, but they wanted to use their own practice and their own knowledge and were happy to share it with somebody. 00:28:00So it was quite interesting.

TORGHELE: So they shared with each other when they came. What were some of the areas where they felt that the Eastern European countries were more advanced, and how did they use that information to teach others here?

LIPSKAYA: No, they don't teach. They just mentioned that, "You know what, we are doing this, this, and this." And that is different from what was done, for instance, in United States, Canada, or Mexico, or whatever. That was for them, and for me, too, because we never traveled abroad. I started to travel in the 00:29:00end of the '80s. Before that, I worked hard and I didn't have time to travel anywhere. But later on, when we started to be a very good laboratory here in Moscow State University, you know, I was invited to France, I was invited to Italy. I worked in Germany, the united Germany. So it was quite interesting, because I learned from them and they learned something from me, and the same was with these people, too. They learned a lot coming to CDC, I'm sure. I was happy to sit at their lectures together with them, because I was interested how it is organized here. I think that it was useful story for both, for them and for us. 00:30:00And the CDC played a great role, because they provided all the opportunities for these people to be taught and to teach them. On the other hand, they also helped me to learn something I did not know. But I taught them what they did not know, because the new science in Moscow State University was quite good. Yeah, and it was something we can share.

TORGHELE: Can you think of examples of things that CDC didn't know that you were able to tell them about? You mentioned that there were some things in public health in some of the countries and at Moscow State University that you were more advanced, or that you felt CDC didn't know as well.

LIPSKAYA: No, it's not that they did not know that. It was different way of public health. I felt that very well when I started to work in WHO, because the first thing I started to read was American Journal of Epidemiology. And that, for me, was education because it was different from what our--because in Russia we had a very good epidemiological school before, you know, in '30s. And it was a really very good school, and public health was good. But it was different, so I learned something, but I was not good enough to teach other people. I was a 00:32:00neuroscientist, because I was involved in something but it wasn't--because if you do something in science, you can't be very wide. You know, you have your topic and you work within your topic, and it's good but it has some limitations. You don't know everything.

TORGHELE: You specialized somewhat in molecular epidemiologic techniques, is that right?

LIPSKAYA: Yeah, yeah. I'm head of Laboratory of Molecular Epidemiology because I started with that due to Olen, because he was the first molecular epidemiologist I knew, and he had a very good publication, he and his colleagues. It was the 00:33:00first. And then we started to do the same work, absolutely the same, because now with our materials--but it was interesting, and that's why it was one of the reasons why I wanted to go to CDC to learn something new. And then I learned some things, and the most interesting was what I learned was the analysis of virus genomes, and at that time it was not very popular. It was just at the beginning. And I think that CDC was the first place where they started to work on that, really, because I participated in the first--because there was a person who was invited--and now he works in Geneva--who organized genome analyzation, 00:34:00if I can put it this way. And it was really difficult because we did not know how to do it. And yeah, it was different things, good and bad. You understood that you don't know everything, and they understood that they know more than you are knowing. So it was like that.

TORGHELE: Did it have to do with the sequencing?

LIPSKAYA: With sequencing, you analyze how the genome is structured. And it was very interesting. And it was very useful because with that, you can compare different viruses with each other, and even with polio you can find differences 00:35:00between type 1 poliovirus, type 2 poliovirus, type 3 poliovirus. And then I was one of the first persons who observed recombination between different types of polio, and it was very unusual. And now this year we have a very good publication, with a lot of people who read it already, about this recombination. I thought that it was just by chance I was lucky to find, observe it, but now we know that it is a typical story and it is very important, and it is very important for virus--how I would call it? When the virus works together, you 00:36:00know, live together. You know, they change different parts of their genome with each other. It's interesting.

TORGHELE: Can you talk a little bit about how that was used in a practical way for polio programs, and how did you use that technique?

LIPSKAYA: In practical way, it is important, because when you find 00:37:00something--for instance, we don't have plenty of cases of polio. The Soviet Union was polio-free from the '50s. In the '50s, they did a big work when Albert Sabin came to Russia. If you're interested, I can tell you this story, too, because I met with him.

TORGHELE: Yes, tell us about that experience and what your impressions were.

LIPSKAYA: Yes, I know him, because to my understanding, when he wanted to use the oral polio vaccine, he was a little bit scared about that, and it was 00:38:00different in comparison with the Salk vaccine completely. And he was very friendly with the person [Dr. Mikhail P.] Chumakov, and he gave it to him. And in the Soviet Union--it was the '50s, because after World War II there were plenty of polio outbreaks in Germany, especially, because it was ruined, in Eastern Europe, in Baltic countries. And it was really a practical necessity to do something about that. And then Chumakov agreed to take the Sabin vaccine and to use it. First of all, he used it for his family. I know it because he was my 00:39:00father-in-law and I just was inside the story.

TORGHELE: Mikhail Chumakov was your father-in-law?

LIPSKAYA: Yes.

TORGHELE: I didn't know that.

LIPSKAYA: And he did it. He immunized his children, and everything was fine. And then after that, they started to immunize people in the Baltic countries, where there were huge outbreaks of polio. Because it's known that polio can be in the places where they have high hygiene, because if it is dirty places, usually they don't have polio because they are immune, one by one, if they have some 00:40:00possibility. Because the real problem of transmission is through just when people excrete, and then they find a lot of dirty things around, and step by step they become immunized.

TORGHELE: So it's more of a natural process, you would say?

LIPSKAYA: Natural procedure. But if it is a country with high hygiene, you know, facilities and a way of life, yes, then they don't have this opportunity to be immunized all the time. So if they meet with something dirty, they became 00:41:00immediately ill. So it is something like that. And that's why in Baltic countries they had a lot of polio, and as well it was in some other countries, in North European countries also had, before they started to immunize properly.

TORGHELE: So Dr. Sabin and Dr. Chumakov worked together?

LIPSKAYA: Oh, yes, they were great friends. And I remember we had the last dinner with the whole family, and Albert Sabin and his wife were with us. And I remember, also, Dr. [Jonas E.] Salk with his wife came to visit Chumakov. He was a very famous person. I don't know if you ever heard about him, but he had some 00:42:00disease. It was when he was like 26, and he became paralyzed, and he had five percent of hearing in one ear and the other was deaf, and he could not move for two years, and then he gradually became better and better. He was the director of the Institute of Poliomyelitis and Viral Encephalitis. And then I think that he met Sabin in America, because he and his wife went to the United States for a year to learn how America's public health was organized. So it was quite an 00:43:00interesting story, too.

TORGHELE: Yes. So they were able to communicate speaking Russian?

LIPSKAYA: Oh, yes. Sabin came to Russia, and he was also in Uzbekistan. He was very well accepted. They have very kind people; it's Oriental, you know, stuff. So he was there and he was traveling within the Russian Federation.

TORGHELE: And it sounds like they immunized whole countries at a time and they were able to do that.

LIPSKAYA: Yeah, they immunized. But there was the Institute of Poliomyelitis, 00:44:00and there they organized the production of the vaccine when they understood that children immunized with this vaccine are fine and they should immunize other children. So in the institute, it was not in Moscow, but it was close to the airport Vnukovo. It's one of the largest airports in Moscow. So they produced a large number of vaccine, and they distributed it through the whole country. And at that time, it was soon after the period when there was a lot of thoughts about poliomyelitis and everything. So at that time, people were very scared 00:45:00about the disease, and they immunized children with great enthusiasm, and it was quite well. But later on, I think, in something like maybe fifteen years after the beginning of immunization with vaccine, people started to be less devoted, and it became less obligatory, I would say. And you know, they started to have, from time to time, some cases. And, again, it started to be in certain places, not in the cities where there was educated population, but somewhere especially in the south, where people have very many children in the family and it was difficult for them to immunize all of them. So it was for these situations, 00:46:00there were some problems.

TORGHELE: I understand, too, that there were held national immunization days, is that right?

LIPSKAYA: Oh, yes.

TORGHELE: How did that work, and what were those like?

LIPSKAYA: It was a situation when the young children were immunized [by] doctors, and they received the vaccine during these days.

TORGHELE: And was that mandatory, for all the children to get the vaccine?

LIPSKAYA: No, it's not compulsory, and it's not with poliomyelitis only. And I 00:47:00would say that it is not that usual for poliomyelitis, because people are afraid of polio. Of course, they are not as afraid as American people after their outbreaks in 1916, 1926, 1950, et cetera, because it was not that bad. But on the other hand, they started to have small cases here and there.

TORGHELE: And it sounds like even during the immunization programs, when Dr. Sabin was there, they immunized hundreds of thousands of people and there were 00:48:00no reported ill effects. Is that right?

LIPSKAYA: I can't say about figures, because I guess if it was about such figures, it was when I was not very much involved, being young.

TORGHELE: You were too young.

LIPSKAYA: Yes, because I have--in the '50s I had a sister who had polio, and then it was a bad end for her. I think that Professor Chumakov was very obedient person, and his wife, they were very dedicated. They worked for polio, and he had a lot of state--I don't know how they call it--he received some nominations 00:49:00from the government, and he was a member of Russian Academy of Science and other Academies of Science, and he was really a fantastic person. Because, I told you, he can hardly walk--but he walked, and during the war he came to Crimea, which was separated from Germans, and there were plenty of diseases there, and he organized public health there in Crimea.

TORGHELE: In spite of his difficulties, he was able to still do that?

LIPSKAYA: Yes, but he did it. He was a strong person, and he was not a very easy person, I would say. He invited me many times to work with him, and I said no, 00:50:00thank you. Because I can't work with person who is very, you know--speak too much and control everything.

TORGHELE: And was his wife also a scientist?

LIPSKAYA: Oh, yes. She was also a member of Academy of Science, and she was a Doctor of Science. She was his second wife. She had four children, and she was also very dedicated. Yes, but he was a difficult person, so I think that it was not an easy life. But just because, you know, I can understand when the person 00:51:00is in such physical condition and is experiencing pain all the time. You know, it's difficult.

TORGHELE: It must be. I'm thinking, too, during those vaccine trials, it was the 1960s when it was discovered that there were some vaccine-associated paralytic polio cases in the United States, and I wondered if you had any of those or if you had any contact-associated paralytic polio?

LIPSKAYA: Vaccine-associated polio?

TORGHELE: Mm-hmm.

LIPSKAYA: Yes, we have it, of course. But, you know, I would say that it was not very often. But now we started to pay much more attention to that, and if we see 00:52:00some cases--I can't say cases, because we have isolated some vaccine poliovirus from people--because, you know that it is very easy, it comes from one person to another and from water, especially now WHO very much aggressively introduced polio isolation from water in all kinds of pools and national places, national lakes. So it's happened. But--say it again, your question?

TORGHELE: I was just wondering what was done, and when there were cases?

LIPSKAYA: [Spoken in Russian] Yes, and if it is vaccine-associated polio, we still have the cases of that. But now when they find some poliovirus, not which is vaccine virus, still they try to close the possibility of analyzing these viruses, because they are afraid of VAPP [vaccine-associated paralytic polio]. And still they have VAPP, but that's why they try to move not to live vaccine, 00:54:00but inactivated. And then the polio institute, which is called Chumakov Polio Institute, they are now working on production of inactivated vaccine because, so far, they brought it from France, I think.

TORGHELE: But now they're making their own?

LIPSKAYA: They are working on that. I'm not sure if they reached what they wanted, but at least there are people who work there. And two of Chumakov's sons are working there, too. One of them had laboratory in the United States. The other also worked in the United States but now returned to Russia.

TORGHELE: How long has Russia been polio-free?

LIPSKAYA: Polio-free? Now, you mean?

TORGHELE: Mm-hmm.

LIPSKAYA: I think it is polio-free in terms that there is no circulation of wild poliovirus in the country.

TORGHELE: It's been a number of years now, is that right?

LIPSKAYA: Oh, yes. But European region is polio-free from 2003. And Russian Federation was one of the countries which was one of the first to be polio-free, because people were very much afraid of polio. I think that Chumakov's role was very high in that.

TORGHELE: In being sure that polio was gone?

LIPSKAYA: Yes. He dedicated his life. And when he was very old--he died quite old--and he asked to take his brains and part of his body for investigation of polio, because at that time, it was a lot of talks about post-polio syndrome. I think he wanted to be sure that he was not a person with post-polio syndrome, that what he had, it was something different.

TORGHELE: Not polio.

LIPSKAYA: Yes, it was not polio. It definitely was not polio, because he became ill in the east part of the Soviet Union. It was in taiga. It was in the forest 00:57:00and there was some--somebody bite him.

TORGHELE: Oh, I see. An insect?

LIPSKAYA: Insect, yes. It was something.

TORGHELE: It looked like polio, but it wasn't?

LIPSKAYA: No, it wasn't polio, no. It was something different.

TORGHELE: He must have felt a tremendous amount of satisfaction with that work, and there must have been a tremendous amount of pride that you all were able to accomplish that eradication. I'm trying to picture what it was like in the 00:58:00countries when you were able to say, "There is no more polio. You don't have to worry about it."

LIPSKAYA: Unfortunately, we still have some polio, because it did not stop completely, vaccination with live vaccine. So in terms of poliovirus, we have it, but we don't have paralytic polio because we don't have wild poliovirus.

TORGHELE: So you don't have any cases of paralytic polio, but you do still have polio in the environment, poliovirus?

LIPSKAYA: It's just because we still have the vaccination with polio, the oral vaccine.

TORGHELE: So it's the live virus?

LIPSKAYA: Actually, they do it, I think, like in the United States, because do 00:59:00first injection of vaccine with an activated vaccine, and after that, other--I think three vaccinations are with oral, to my knowledge how it is now.

TORGHELE: I'm thinking about polio eradication now in other countries where polio cases still occur. What do you think have been the primary problems to eradicating polio there in, for instance, Pakistan?

LIPSKAYA: It's both Pakistan and Afghanistan. The problem is that they have military activity inside the country and they don't immunize. To destroy, to 01:00:00finish with polio, you need to have very good immunization procedures. I remember--it's interesting, maybe for you too, to know that when I was at CDC, each Friday we had some meetings, and the people were discussing which will be the last countries with polio. And everybody-- there was Steve Cochi, Olen Kew, Mark Pallansch, and some other people--and everybody said it will be India. No, it was not India. Because as soon as India decided to liquidate polio, they did it. And because the country wanted it, the government wanted it, the people wanted it, and, yeah, there was no polio there. And Pakistan and Afghanistan, 01:01:00they also would like to do that. But they can't, because they can't immunize every child, because there are places which are under control of military. And the same is in Afghanistan, because also they have a lot of people there who tried to do something for this poor country, but it doesn't work very well. So that's why it's difficult. And from my perspective, I think there are some other things also, because--you not ever think about polio when we started this 01:02:00program. Now we know more, and I don't know how it will work.

TORGHELE: It's interesting that the prediction from everyone here was that India would be the last country. That's very interesting.

LIPSKAYA: Well, yes, but at that time it was real. And I also believed in that, because a lot of dirty places and all these kinds of water, you know, flying everywhere in the cities and in the suburbs, and a lot of dirty. And when it's a lot of dirty, it also can result in something bad.

TORGHELE: I'm thinking now of some of the people you mentioned while we've been talking. Are there other people in your mind who stand out as making significant 01:03:00contributions that were in Russia or in other areas where you worked that we might not know about?

LIPSKAYA: Yes, I think in Russia contribution, I think that it was Chumakov was the person who really did a lot of contribution to the eradication of polio, more than probably anybody else. But it was his life, and he wanted to do that. And he was so crippled himself, he knows what it is, so his attitude was a little bit personal, I would say. And he did it. Yes, but his wife, she had poliomyelitis, too, but it was easy poliomyelitis. She was not crippled, and she 01:04:00walked with stick for a couple of years, and then she was quite good, and yes, she had a nice normal life.

TORGHELE: And what was her name?

LIPSKAYA: Her name was [Dr.] Marina Voroshilova.

TORGHELE: And so they both were disabled in some way, but hers was polio?

LIPSKAYA: Mm-hmm.

TORGHELE: That's interesting.

LIPSKAYA: But not only her, but she had four children, and at that time, her third--all of them are boys--the third boy had polio, too. But also very light 01:05:00polio, because polio could be dangerous. So I don't know how they call it, with the mouth, you know, when the--the way the polio come to the organism is through the mouth. And she had it, and she thought that she had just something like easy disease, a mouth disease, and that it is not dangerous. So I think that her 01:06:00third boy was a small one, and probably she gave him breast milk, and the next day she observed that he couldn't stand on his legs, and he could not move by the legs for quite a while. But fortunately, it was not that severe, and in some time it passed away. But it definitely was polio, because I think that she did some laboratory investigation, because they worked in a place where they had plenty of monkeys, and they used these monkeys for science for polio eradication.

TORGHELE: It's interesting that their family was so affected by polio. Well, as 01:07:00we sort of sum up what we've been talking about, I'm wondering if there are other recollections you have or points you would like to make that we didn't talk about today?

LIPSKAYA: I don't know. I think that we talked about everything of what I have in your last Global Health Chronicles.

TORGHELE: It's been so interesting to hear your side of things. We don't have that perspective from anyone else. I'm so glad that you agreed to talk with us 01:08:00for the Global Health Chronicles Oral History Project. You're a great storyteller and you have great recollection.

LIPSKAYA: Well, yes, I was also very glad because I read a lot of literature which I did not read before on polio in the United States, and it is very interesting--really interesting to know how it worked. I knew that there were about poliomyelitis in European region after the war. You know, it's interesting to know that the majority of the best laboratories in Europe, especially Western Europe, had Nobel Prizes for work with polio. I didn't know that.

TORGHELE: The Nobel Prizes didn't go to Salk or Sabin.

LIPSKAYA: Here it's Salk, Sabin, and I've forgotten [Dr. Joseph L.] Joe Melnick, whom I also met and who brought me something on the neck--I don't know how they call it.

TORGHELE: Oh, necklace?

LIPSKAYA: Yes.

TORGHELE: Oh, that was nice.

LIPSKAYA: Yes, it was funny.

TORGHELE: Well, Galina, I want to thank you so much for your contributions today. I have enjoyed talking to you so much and learned a lot. I really want to thank you.

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