Making history: from a public health emergency to a polio-free world

On 27 March 2014, India and the entire WHO South East Asia Region were certified polio-free , bringing to 80% the proportion of the world’s population that now lives in regions entirely free of indigenous wild polioviruses. It is also increasingly likely that two of the three strains of wild poliovirus have been wiped out. Type 2 virus was last detected in India in 1999 and the type 3 virus has not been detected anywhere in the world since a child in Nigeria was paralysed by the virus in November 2012. Overall, the world remains largely on track to achieve all four of the ambitious objectives set out in the Polio eradication and endgame strategic plan3 – the Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s strategy to end all polio, everywhere, by 2018. However, this progress could still be undone.