Final answer:
Polio was nearly eradicated thanks to the mass production and use of Jonas Salk's vaccine. This represents a significant public health milestone in the history of vaccines and has led to the near-global eradication of the disease. Option c is the correct answer.
Step-by-step explanation:
The disease that was nearly eradicated when society decided to mass-produce and use a vaccine created by Jonas Salk is polio. Jonas Salk developed a polio vaccine in the 1950s using a killed virus that was tested on the HeLa cell line. The mass immunization campaigns that followed in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s led to the near eradication of the disease.
This was a significant achievement in public health, representing a milestone in the use of vaccines and leading to routine childhood vaccinations against many infectious diseases. The polio vaccine set the stage for widespread vaccine use and marked a shift in the fight against communicable diseases.
Furthermore, polio was a devastating viral disease that led to paralysis and death, especially affecting children. The introduction of both the killed vaccine developed by Salk and the later live vaccine developed by others drastically reduced polio's impact globally. Today, the overall incidence of polio has dropped dramatically, and the disease is considered nearly eliminated in most parts of the world, thanks to global vaccination efforts.