The first cholera vaccine
AI-drafted · awaiting admin review
Was the first effective cholera vaccine proven in India in 1893, or in Spain in 1885?
Disputed: evidence incompleteMedicine & health
Indian claim
Haffkine's cholera vaccine was first used on a large scale in Calcutta and Bengal from 1893, and field trials in India showed it cut cholera deaths sharply.
Evidence for the Indian claim
- Haffkine's trials in India between 1893 and 1896 are credited as the first effective preventive vaccination against a bacterial disease in humans.
Commonly credited to
Jaime Ferrán vaccinated tens of thousands of people against cholera in Valencia, Spain, in 1885, seven years before Haffkine first tested his vaccine on himself in Paris in July 1892.
Evidence for the other claim
- Ferrán's 1885 campaign was earlier, but his methods and results were disputed by expert commissions at the time.
- Haffkine developed the vaccine in Paris; India was where it was proven.
What historians and scientists say
Ferrán used a cholera vaccine first, but Haffkine's vaccine, tested in India, was the first shown to work reliably. Historians still argue over which deserves to be called the first.