Haffkine's plague vaccine
Vacuna contra la peste de Haffkine
- Date
- 1897 · confidence high
- Place
- Grant Medical College, Bombay (Mumbai), Maharashtra, India
- Credited to
- Waldemar Haffkine
- People
- 👤 Waldemar Haffkine1856–1930
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
Vaccine made from heat-killed plague bacteria that Haffkine injected into himself before testing it in Byculla Jail during the Bombay epidemic. Following his cholera vaccine (trialled in Calcutta in 1893), it was the first effective plague vaccine.
The Mulkowal disaster (1902), a tetanus contamination, halted his programme until he was exonerated.
What it led to
- mass vaccination in India
- Haffkine Institute in Bombay