The Global Polio Eradication Initiative has cut wild poliovirus cases by over 99% and left two endemic countries

Background

In 1988, the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution for the worldwide eradication of polio, marking the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), a global public-private partnership. Cases due to wild poliovirus have decreased by over 99% since 1988, from an estimated 350 000 cases in more than 125 endemic countries, to two endemic countries. Endemic transmission of wild poliovirus is continuing in areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Polio is a highly infectious viral disease that invades the nervous system; it is transmitted mainly through the faecal-oral route and multiplies in the intestine. Polio mainly affects children under 5 years of age, one in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis, and among those paralysed 5–10% die when their breathing muscles become immobilized. There is no cure for polio, it can only be prevented, and two vaccines are available: oral polio vaccine and inactivated polio vaccine. The WHO Region of the Americas was certified polio-free in 1994, followed by the WHO Western Pacific Region in 2000 and the WHO European Region in June 2002; on 27 March 2014 the WHO South-East Asia Region was certified polio-free, a bloc of 11 countries stretching from Indonesia to India, and in 2020 Africa became the fifth region to be certified wild poliovirus-free. Eradication would make polio the second human disease eradicated globally, after smallpox in 1980.