Why stop with eradicating polio when the eradication of measles is within our grasp? During more than 25 years of operations, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative has mobilized and trained millions of volunteers, social mobilizers, and health workers; accessed households untouched by other health initiatives; mapped and brought health interventions to chronically neglected communities; and established a standardized, real-time global surveillance and response capacity.
Many of these polio assets have been applied in tandem to measles elimination, which has similar strategies and program implementation infrastructure needs. Since the beginning of GPEI in 1988, more than 13 million paralytic polio cases have been prevented through the use of polio vaccine; since 2001, 15.6 million measles deaths among children have been prevented with measles vaccination.
Does it make any sense to dismantle the polio assets and infrastructure in the next few years because of poor planning and lack of forward vision, only to have to reconstruct it later at greater expense and after lost momentum and human resource capacity? It is inexcusable not to seize this opportunity to prevent the 145,000 annual measles deaths still occurring worldwide and create a world free of both polio and measles.
About the author
Steve Cochi
Dr. Stephen L. Cochi is the senior adviser to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Global Immunization Division. He has spent 33 years at CDC working in the field of immunization and from 1985 to present, he served in various roles at CDC where he led and managed the U.S. immunization program and its international activities.
