Abstract

The striking 50-year-long decline in the incidence of poliomyelitis has stalled in the past 7 years, which has led to calls for an urgent re-assessment of eradication and post-eradication campaign strategies. The current plan of eliminating the circulation of wild poliovirus so that further immunization will be unnecessary does not take into account recent scientific data and political realities that limit the likelihood that this strategy can sustain prevention of the disease. It is crucially important that high levels of population immunity are maintained against polio in the foreseeable future.

Author affiliations

1. Konstantin Chumakov is at the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Food and Drug Administration, 1401 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852, USA.
2. Ellie Ehrenfeld is at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA.
3. Eckard Wimmer is at the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Stony Brook University, School of Medicine, Stony Brook, New York, New York 11794, USA.
4. Vadim I. Agol is at the M.P. Chumakov Institute of Poliomyelitis and Viral Encephalitides, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Moscow 142782, Russia.

Correspondence to: Ellie Ehrenfeld² Email: eehrenfeld@niaid.nih.gov

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