The World Health Organization has an action plan for the next 18 months that could very well lead to eradication, says Oliver Rosenbauer, spokesman for polio efforts at the organization.
But there's a $945 million funding gap, he said. Already, polio immunization activities in 24 countries have been cut this year.
And then there are logistical issues of getting vaccines to the children who need them most.
There's an Opinion piece too by Dr. Muhammad Ali Pate and Dr. Christopher Elias: Don't fall at the finish line in the race to eradicate polio. Dr. Pate is Minister of State for Health in Nigeria and Dr. Elias is president of Global Development at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
As public health practitioners and as parents, we believe that every child, no matter whether they were born in a U.S. hospital or a hut in Nigeria, deserve to be protected from this preventable disease. And we believe that because eradicating polio is something that benefits us all, we all share in the responsibility to make that happen.
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