Poliomyelitis Eradication--a Dangerous Endgame

Efforts to eradicate poliovirus from the face of the Earth have been very successful, thanks in large part to the oral poliovirus vaccine developed by Albert Sabin. However, as Nathanson and Fine explain in their Perspective, maintaining a world free from poliomyelitis will not be easy. They discuss the implications of a recent outbreak of paralytic poliomyelitis on the island of Hispaniola from which wild poliovirus was eliminated 10 years previously ( Kew et al.).