Polio -- formerly called infantile paralysis -- is a viral disease. Polio virus, which usually infects children, multiplies in the intestinal tract and spreads by fecal contamination of food and water, especially where sanitation is poor. The World Health Organization, Rotary International, The United Nations Children's Fund and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have mounted global immunization campaigns to eradicate polio. In 2011, polio remained endemic in only four countries: Pakistan, India, Nigeria and Afghanistan.
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization immunizes with three vaccines -- an orally administered, weakened virus, an injectable, killed virus vaccine and a injectable vaccine that combines polio immunization with diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus vaccines. Local conditions, risk factors and cultural acceptance help determine which is most practical. As of August, 2010, WHO reported that 114 countries were certified as polio-free, 70 countries are not certified polio-free but reported no endemic cases and only rare cases imported by immigrants and visitors. Aggressive immunization campaigns in the remaining four countries are hampered by inaccessible geography, local resistance to outside intervention, overpopulated urban conditions and war.
Rotary International
Beginning in the mid-1980s, Rotary International, a private, worldwide service organization of individual business men and women, waged a war against polio through a campaign called Polio Plus. For example, in a single week, during a 2010, Rotary volunteers achieved 136 million immunizations. To support the cost of such campaigns, Rotary members focused many private contributions toward fulfilling a pledge to raise $200 million to match $355 million promised by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The resulting $555 million helped surmount what has been called "the last hurdle" to completing the job. However, until worldwide immunization is completed, a single, active case could risk its return.
UNICEF
The United Nations International Children's Fund adds the resources of the UN's member states to its partnership with WHO, Rotary International and the CDC in their Global Polio Eradication Initiative. UNICEF calculates that nearly 5 million children have been spared polio's paralysis and incapacitation. In 1988, annual polio cases numbered 350,000. By 2009, that number was reduced by more than 99 percent, to only 1,606 cases. The United States dropped from 30,000 annual cases to zero during that time. UNICEF promotes National Immunization Days, around the world as mass immunization events. Ninety five percent of polio cases produce almost no symptoms. Obvious sickness is not a sufficient trigger for an immunization program. Only about one in 1,000 children who contract polio become paralyzed or die, so immunization is considered incomplete until every child, well or ill receives sufficient vaccine.
CDC
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides logistical support and funding for the GPEI's program. The CDC supplies laboratory facilities, epidemiologists, programmatic expertise and expert consultants. The CDC also supplies funding to support local polio eradication activities in the polio-endemic countries. Examples include funding a 2008 purchase of 280 million doses of vaccine through UNICEF, providing support for the WHO Global Specialized Reference Laboratory for Polio and maintaining 145 laboratories in the global polio network.
