Finally: A generation of children has grown up polio free! In 1988, there were more than 350,000 children diagnosed with polio and in 2014, there were only 359. This is the FIRST time in the history of polio where so few children have this crippling virus.
The progress to end polio for good is tangible, and it is real. However, with just two countries in the world where polio still persists (Pakistan and Afghanistan), the threat of outbreak exists. UNICEF and Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) leads vaccine supply, providing cost-effective, easily administered vaccines to the most insecure and poverty-stricken areas of the world, reaching over 500 millions of children in over 70 countries. The goal is to eradicate polio entirely by 2019. We've never been closer.
On World Polio Day, we celebrate the brave leaders who go to great lengths to #ENDPOLIO.
xx,
st
