World Health Organization

2015

The Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI) has made great progress since the World Health Assembly resolution to eradicate poliomyelitis (polio) was passed in 1988. Three WHO regions, the Americas (1994), the Western Pacific (2000) and Europe (2002), have been declared free of indigenous wild poliovirus (WPV), and by 2005 the number of polio-endemic countries in the remaining three WHO regions had been reduced to four. As of the end of 2014, only three countries, in two regions, remain endemic. Along with the success, however, came additional challenges.