Can we capitalize on the virtues of vaccines? Insights from the polio eradication initiative

R.B. Aylward and D.L. Heymann

American Journal of Public Health, 2005, vol. 95, issue 5, 773-777

Abstract: Twenty-five years after the eradication of small-pox, the ongoing effort to eradicate poliomyelitis has grown into the largest international health initiative ever undertaken. By 2004, however, the polio eradication effort was threatened by a challenge regularly faced by public health policymakers every-where-misperception about the benefits and risks of vaccines. The propagation of false rumors about oral poliovirus vaccine safety led to the reinfection of 13 previously polio-free countries and the largest polio epidemic in Africa in recent years. With deft management of such challenges by local, national, and international health authorities, poliomyelitis, a disease that threatened children everywhere just 2 generations ago, could soon be relegated to history like smallpox before it.

Date: 2005
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2004.055897_7

DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2004.055897

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