Progress in Polio Eradication
From the WHO today, governments, donors and international agencies leading the drive to eradicate polio fully supported the planned final attack on the poliovirus. Indigenous wild poliovirus survives in only parts of four countries – Nigeria, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan – where transmission has never been stopped. Today's high-level Consultation on polio eradication agreed to raise within 12 months - and then sustain for as long as needed - the levels of vaccination coverage and child immunity in the areas with endemic polio to levels that stopped the disease altogether in the polio-free parts of these countries. Ten other countries are currently fighting the tail-end of outbreaks caused by importations of poliovirus.