Understanding commitment to polio vaccination

The goal of polio eradication is edging ever closer to reality. There is much to celebrate; data from Nigeria suggest limited transmission of wild-type and vaccine-derived polio virus in the northern states despite the perilous security situation, while in Pakistan and Afghanistan inaccessible populations are becoming smaller and efforts to improve managerial and operational capacity have resulted in a substantial reduction of wild-type cases.1 Although these improvements have been welcomed, the Independent Monitoring Board of Polio Eradication described in 2015 the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) as having not “reached peak performance”.