World Polio Day

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As a virologist who has worked on poliovirus since 1979, I would be remiss if I did not note that today, 24 October, is World Polio Day.

The polio eradication effort has made impressive progress towards eliminating polio from the planet. In 1988 it was estimated that there were a total of 350,000 cases of poliomyelitis (probably an underestimate); as of this writing there have been 301 cases in 2013, which is unfortunately already more than in all of 2012 (223). Some setbacks to the program include an outbreak in the Horn of Africa, the finding of wild poliovirus (but no paralytic cases) in Israel, and two suspected cases in Syria. Transmission of wild poliovirus has never been interrupted in three countries: Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan. The good news is that India remains polio-free, a remarkable achievement.

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