Huffington Post: Achieving a Polio-Free World
Anne Schuchat, acting director of the CDC and acting administrator at the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR)

“…[U]ntil polio is gone everywhere in the world, the risk of new outbreaks persists. To accomplish this goal, we must continue working together to improve immunization delivery and vaccinate those children in hard-to-reach, insecure areas. A vast global laboratory and surveillance network and a well-trained public health workforce ready to respond to disease outbreaks is essential to this mission. We also depend on scientific and technical expertise that not only supports polio eradication, but has been essential to critical public health responses against measles, Ebola, and other infectious diseases. It has been more than 35 years since the world eradicated smallpox, the first disease ever eradicated from humans. When we succeed in reaching and vaccinating almost every child against polio, we will eradicate it for good — and guarantee future generations a world that is forever free from polio” (4/27).