Progress toward interruption of wild poliovirus transmission--worldwide, January 2007-April 2008.

In 1988, the World Health Assembly resolved to eradicate poliomyelitis. Subsequently, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative reduced the global incidence of polio associated with wild polioviruses (WPVs) from an estimated 350,000 cases in 1988 to 1,997 reported cases in 2006 and reduced the number of countries that have never succeeded in interrupting WPV transmission from 125 to four (Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan). Type 2 WPV (WPV2) circulation was last observed in October 1999. In February 2007, the World Health Organization (WHO) convened a stakeholders meeting to agree on an accelerated polio-eradication effort to be used during 2007-2008 and establish milestones to monitor progress. Programmatic strategies implemented in 2007 included expanded use of type 1 monovalent oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) (mOPV1) to eliminate type 1 WPV (WPV1) transmission before type 3 WPV (WPV3) and targeted use of type 3 monovalent OPV (mOPV3) in selected areas. This report summarizes these strategies and overall progress toward reaching the milestones, including a decline in the overall number of WPV cases to 1,310 in 2007 and substantial progress toward interruption of WPV1 circulation in India in 2008.