💉 Polio Is Almost Gone From the Planet
A disease that used to paralyze hundreds of thousands of children a year is nearly extinct.
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📰 The Good News
One of the Great Eradication Success Stories
In 1988, wild poliovirus paralyzed roughly 350,000 children a year across more than 125 countries. A coordinated global vaccination campaign — the Global Polio Eradication Initiative — has since driven that number down by more than 99.9%.
💉 Wild polio cases have fallen more than 99.9% since 1988 — from roughly 350,000 children paralyzed a year to a small handful of cases worldwide.
Wild polio now survives in only a couple of countries on Earth, and health officials consider full eradication within reach — which would make it only the second human disease ever wiped out entirely, after smallpox.
👉 Worth Remembering
Smallpox was eradicated once. Polio is closer than almost any other disease to becoming the second. That's not a small thing — it's one of humanity's biggest wins.
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