Global Efforts To Eradicate Polio Continue On World Polio Day
News outlets report on various aspects of polio in recognition of World Polio Day, marked annually on October 24.
Inter Press Service: Asia: So Close and Yet So Far From Polio Eradication
“The goal is an ambitious one — to deliver a polio-free world by 2018. Towards this end, the multi-sector Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) is bringing out the big guns, sparing no expense to ensure that ‘every last child’ is immunized against the crippling disease…” (Aryal et al., 10/24).
The Lancet Global Health: Polio: is the end in sight?
“World Polio Day, on October 24, is an annual opportunity to revitalize attention and efforts towards the global eradication of this now rare but still fatal and devastatingly disabling infectious disease. 2014 has not felt like a good year for infectious disease control, yet just three months from now, a major date in the Polio Eradication and Endgame Strategic Plan 2013-18 will be reached. The first objective of the plan, launched in April last year, was ‘to stop all [wild poliovirus] transmission by the end of 2014.’ Given all that has happened this year, is this target still realistic?…” (Mullan, November 2014).
U.N. News Centre: Ahead of World Day, U.N. hails landmark global polio eradication campaign
“Every day, a thousand or so children are being protected from disability as part of a 26-year global effort to eradicate polio through a worldwide campaign that has immunized millions of previously unreached children across the globe, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on the eve of World Polio Day…” (10/23).