Road Map for Polio Eradication–Establishing the Link with Millennium Development Goal No. 4 for Child Survival

Abstract

The global polio eradication program, started in 1988, initially targeted the year 2000 for the worldwide elimination of the disease. Although poliovirus transmission has been markedly reduced, it has not been eliminated. As we enter the 20th year of the campaign, poliovirus continues to infect and cause paralysis in localized areas of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. To combat this scourge, the World Health Organization, together with other worldwide partners, has newly committed to worldwide eradication by 2009. It appears that the delay has been caused by a combination of the failure of globalization to deliver the prosperity it initially promised and technical problems specific to polio eradication. We hope that the world can reach zero level status for polio report, but verification would take many years and extended research due to the nature of poliovirus. We propose a scientific joint enterprise by which the polio endgame is accelerated, at the same time that a special immunization program against multiple other vaccine-preventable diseases is initiated. This newly organized collaborative effort, we believe, will maximize the benefits achieved by polio eradication and reduce childhood disease and deaths, namely achieve the Millennium Development Goal no. 4, in sub-Saharan Africa, the region that especially needs such action.