Polio

Polio needs to be eradicated.

• Thanks to the creation of both live and injectable polio vaccines in the 1950s and ‘60s, polio was all but eliminated in the developed world. It was reduced to undetectable levels, but surveillance and screening continued in order to be sure that it wasn’t reintroduced.
• In 1988, the World Health Organization (WHO), Rotary International, UNICEF, and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) forged the Global Polio Eradication Initiative to eradicate polio as a global imperative. The goal was to remove it permanently so that surveillance, screening, and control measures, such as vaccines, would no longer be needed.
• Since then, the number of cases has dropped dramatically, but the disease still exists in a handful of countries.

Although worldwide efforts to distribute a vaccine reduced polio by 99 percent, young people are still being infected.

Between 2003 and 2006, the polio virus spread from Nigeria and India to previously polio-free areas, again threatening children unprotected by the vaccine. We need new approaches to overcome the political, cultural, geographical, and financial obstacles that prevent this disease from being eradicated.

Polio eradication strategies have been effective in most areas of the globe.

Eradication requires commitment, political will, and coordinated efforts of all global, national, and local partners, as well as the governments of all affected countries. Current eradication efforts are focused in the four remaining countries where polio is endemic—Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan—but the strategy to monitor the disease and provide access to immunization is global.

We’re working to eradicate polio.

We believe this goal is attainable, and reaching it will demonstrate that remarkable improvements in health can be achieved even in the most challenging settings in the world.

Next: Our Approach

We’re working with partners, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, Rotary International, UNICEF, and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to eradicate polio. We’re supporting the following strategies:

Support the purchase and distribution of existing vaccines in high-risk countries.

We support the work of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative to implement “National Immunization Days” to ensure the vaccination of all children less than 5 years old in any high-risk country—countries with new cases arising or vulnerable to reintroduction. This effort requires political oversight, identification of households, engagement of vaccinators, financial support, and technical assistance.

Support the development of new vaccines.

These new vaccines are safer and more effective than previous vaccines. We’re also promoting and funding activities in polio research.

Enhance surveillance and outbreak response activities.

We’re sharing information with countries to help them monitor outbreaks of polio and then mobilize resources as quickly as possible. These efforts help countries improve their response to other diseases, too; for example, measles, Japanese encephalitis, and outbreaks of avian flu.

Advocate with governments and manufacturers of vaccines to increase their efforts toward eradicating polio.

Besides our own contributions, we advocate for financial commitments from donors and encourage countries to increase their own funding toward eradicating polio. We also encourage vaccine manufacturers to generate products as inexpensively as possible and get them to market as quickly as they can.