
Global Health Histories Seminar 110: Polio, immunisation and universal health coverage Thomas Abraham, University of Hong Kong and David Heymann, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
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Event details
WHO Global Health Histories Seminar
In 1988 the World Health Assembly passed a resolution to eradicate polio by the year 2000, in what was meant to be "an appropriate gift...from the twentieth to the twenty-first century." The gift is now 18 years overdue, and although polio eradication is now within sight, there are risks to eradication that were not foreseen when the programme began, causing a longer than anticipated polio eradication endgame.
This seminar will explore the political, social and epidemiological reasons why polio eradication has taken so long to achieve, and lessons that could be drawn for any future eradication campaigns.