Polio (poliomyelitis) mainly affects children under five years of age. Polio virus invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis in a matter of hours. Polio is mainly passed through person-to-person (i.e., fecal-oral) contact, and infects persons who do not have immunity against the disease.

Polio Eradication Campaign :
In 1988, the forty-first World Health Assembly, consisting then of delegates from 166 Member States, adopted a resolution for the worldwide eradication of polio. It marked the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, spearheaded by the World Health Organization (WHO), Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and UNICEF. The primary strategies for achieving this goal are:

• high infant immunization coverage with four doses of oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) in the first year of life;
  
  
• supplementary doses of OPV to all children under five years of age during national immunization days (NIDs)
  
  
• surveillance for wild poliovirus through reporting and laboratory testing of all acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) cases among children under fifteen years of age;
  
  
• targeted "mop-up" campaigns once wild poliovirus transmission is limited to a specific focal area.