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Global Polio Eradication: Progress and Challenges

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Human Viruses: Diseases, Treatments and Vaccines

Abstract

In 1988, the World Health Assembly passed a resolution to eradicate poliomyelitis, a disease which was endemic in 125 countries and paralyzed 350,000 children per year. Primarily through the large-scale use of oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV), as of 2020, two of the three wild poliovirus (WPV) serotypes (types 2 and 3) have been eradicated and transmission of type 1 remains uninterrupted only in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Unknown at the time of declaring eradication, vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPVs)—rare strains that have genetically mutated from the poliovirus contained in OPV, pose a major challenge to eradication. In this chapter, we discuss the basic principles for eradication of poliomyelitis, the evolving epidemiology, with a focus on the recent period (2017–2020) of increasing cases of both WPV and VDPVs, and prospective scientific and strategic developments to achieve eradication in the near future.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 1432 Elliot Ave W., Seattle, WA, 98119, USA

    Ananda Sankar Bandyopadhyay

  2. World Health Organization, 20 Avenue Appia, 1202, Genève, Switzerland

    Grace Ruth Macklin

  3. London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London, WC17HT, UK

    Grace Ruth Macklin

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  1. Ananda Sankar Bandyopadhyay
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  2. Grace Ruth Macklin
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Correspondence to Ananda Sankar Bandyopadhyay .

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  1. Wollaton, Nottingham, UK

    Shamim I. Ahmad

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Bandyopadhyay, A.S., Macklin, G.R. (2021). Global Polio Eradication: Progress and Challenges. In: Ahmad, S.I. (eds) Human Viruses: Diseases, Treatments and Vaccines . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71165-8_30

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