(Not) Eradicating Polio

In 1988, the World Health Assembly resolved to eradicate polio from the world by the end of 2005. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative is spearheaded by WHO, Rotary International, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Through intensive vaccination campaigns, the PEI has reduced the number of polio cases worldwide from an estimated 350,000 cases in 1988 to 1,255 cases in 2004. Approximately 5 million cases of paralysis have been averted since the launch of the global polio eradication effort. How sad, then, that the WHO was forced to concede this week that polio will not be eradicated by the end of the year.

''There will not be a new target for the eradication of polio,'' said Bruce Aylward, coordinator of the World Health Organization's Global Polio Eradication Program. ''Every country in the world could stop polio by the end of 2005 save Nigeria. Basically the world, at the start of 2006, will look at who is late, and work to make that process move faster.''

The virus that all four children are carrying is derived from the oral polio vaccine. That vaccine has not been used in the United States since 2000, in part because it causes paralysis in about one of every 13 million doses administered. American children now get an injected vaccine, which also prevents infection.