Around the world, scientists and healthcare professionals continue to build on the foundations laid by Nobel Prize laureates. This ongoing commitment to improving global well-being is vividly captured in the work of dedicated field staff. In the short clip Shadows in Sunlight, directed by Ruhi Hamid, we follow Ishrat Rahim who vaccinates children against polio in Pakistan, illustrating the real-world impact of foundational scientific breakthroughs on public health.
In the short clip Shadows in Sunlight, directed by Ruhi Hamid, we follow Ishrat Rahim who vaccinates children against polio in Pakistan.
Ishrat Rahim is one of almost 400,000 women working across Pakistan to vaccinate the country’s 40 million children against polio. In her work, she often encounters suspicion and mistrust, due to cultural and religious reasons.
While she works, she and her female colleagues are constantly protected by armed guards. Despite sometimes threatening situations, she persistently continues her work to convince the city’s residents of the benefits of the vaccine and the potential for eradicating polio. The clip above is from the documentary Shadows in Sunlight, one in a series of films that explore how researchers and health care professionals are building on the foundation laid by Nobel Prize laureates to prevent and treat diseases today.
The film, Rahim’s work, draw inspiration from the legacy of John Enders, Thomas Weller and Frederick Robbins, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1954. In 1949, they succeeded in cultivating a virus in a lab – a crucial precondition for the development of a vaccine against polio.
The film was made possible through a collaboration between Nobel Prize Outreach and Grain Media, with support from the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
