The challenges of polio eradication

Today, the New York Times launched on its front page a five-part series titled "On the Brink". The series will focus on diseases...

"...that are extinct in the developed world but stubbornly persistent in some poor nations. As the diseases hover on the brink of eradication, doctors and scientists face daunting obstacles as they struggle to finish the job."

Today's piece is an extensive, 4,000 word examination of the quest to eradicate polio worldwide. We've written previously about polio eradication efforts. The Times piece elaborates on how rumored safety concerns, public suspicions of government motives, and questions over the continued necessity of vaccination have hampered the push toward eradication. While the story discusses only polio in the developing world, these objections sound all but identical to common criticisms of any vaccination campaign, developing world or otherwise. An excerpt:

"Since [1988], some two billion children have been vaccinated, cutting incidence of the disease more than 99 percent and saving some five million from paralysis or death, the World Health Organization estimates.

But six years past the [2000] deadline [for polio eradication], even optimists warn that total eradication is far from assured. The drive against polio threatens to become a costly display of all that can conspire against even the most ambitious efforts to eliminate a disease: cultural suspicions, logistical nightmares, competition for resources from many other afflictions, and simple exhaustion. So monumental is the challenge, in fact, that only one disease has ever been eradicated -- smallpox. As the polio campaign has shown, even the miracle of discovering a vaccine is not enough."

It's an excellent piece that offers a glimpse at the staggering complexity of mounting an effective vaccination campaign on a global scale.

Also of note is this sidebar piece on the merits of disease eradication as a public health goal.