Global Polio Eradication

Keep track of the battle against Polio at polioeradication.org. This is where you can find a weekly update, maps, and numerous interesting reports and documents. I found this report interesting because it really brought home the magnitude of the task:

In the teeming streets of Uttar Pradesh, ensuring each of the estimated 38 million children in India's most populous state is immunized remains one of the global polio eradication initiative's greatest challenges. Here, more than 400,000 children are born every month and until recently, up to half those names were not making it onto the official government registry.

Week by week, mobile polio immunization teams, which literally walk from house to house throughout Uttar Pradesh to ensure blanket immunization coverage, continue to find unregistered, unimmunized newborns. These infants are not only susceptible to contracting polio; they also act as a reservoir for the virus to survive in the community and make for inaccurate immunization coverage figures.