the World Health Organization (WHO)

declared the second-ever public health emergency of international concern. Polio is the emergency – a disease again posing a public health risk to countries around the world and requiring a coor-dinated international response.1 For some, this declaration seemed a paradox. Polio is nearly eradicated. The virus that once paralysed over 1000 children a day in more than 125 countries paralysed just over one child a day in eight countries in 2013. Two of the three countries that have never stopped polio – Afghanistan and Nige-ria – overcame tremendous difficulties to achieve a greater than 50 % reduction in cases in 2013 and have kept their case counts in the single digits so far in 2014.