May 24, 2012

A group dedicated to eradicating polio worldwide launched an emergency plan after recent outbreaks of the disease threatened countries that previously had been free of polio. The group, known as the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, was launched by the World Health Organization (WHO), national governments, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and Rotary International in 1988.

Polio, officially known as poliomyelitis, is an infection caused by a virus. Some people may have only such mild, short-term symptoms as headache, sore throat, and vomiting. Others may develop back and leg pain that leads to permanent paralysis.

In the past, polio epidemics were common throughout the world and greatly feared. However, during the 1950′s, American researcher Jonas E. Salk developed the first vaccine against polio. In 1961, an oral vaccine developed by another American researcher, Albert B. Sabin, was approved. The vaccines quickly became part of the standard vaccination regimen recommended for children. Since then, polio has been nearly eliminated in developed countries. From 1955 to 1957 in the United States, inoculation reduced the incidence of polio by 85 to 90 percent. When GPEI was founded in 1988, more than 350,000 children in more than 125 countries were paralyzed from polio each year. By the first decade of the 2000′s, the incidence of polio had been reduced by 99 percent.

Dr. Salk administers the polio vaccine to a child in 1954 as part of a mass testing program. (Courtesy of March of Dimes Foundation)

In early 2012, health officials at WHO were thrilled to announce that India (the second most populous country in the world) had been free of polio for one year. Nevertheless, polio remains endemic (constantly present somewhere in the population) in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria. In addition, China, Tajikistan, and West Africa reported large outbreaks of polio in 2012, their first cases in many years. Epidemiologists (doctors who study epidemics) determined that the disease had spread into China from Pakistan and into West Africa from Nigeria.

An infant in Afghanistan is immunized against polio through a program administered by UNICEF. (Courtesy of AP/Wide World)

GPEI officials urged donor countries to step up funding so that the group could intensify its efforts to increase vaccination coverage in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria. The group hoped that more technical assistance and greater social mobilization would increase accountability, coordination, and oversight of each country’s vaccination campaign and ease cultural misconceptions that often interfere with immunization.

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