Health officials from our partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative will join Rotary leaders and special guests at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, to give a status update on the eradication campaign.

The wild poliovirus has caused fewer new cases of the disease so far this year than this time last year, but recent setbacks in Nigeria — which was re-classified as polio-endemic in September 2016 — underscore the need for vigilance.

Yet the detection of new cases in northern Nigeria also demonstrates that surveillance efforts are reaching children even in areas affected by conflict. The challenge now is to contain the outbreak and boost immunity in affected areas until the virus is eradicated worldwide.

This year also saw the largest and fastest vaccine rollout in history, as 155 countries and territories switched from the trivalent oral polio vaccine to the bivalent oral polio vaccine. The bivalent oral polio vaccine protects against the only two strains still in circulation and reduces the likelihood of vaccine-derived cases.