Polio is an infectious disease mostly contracted by children. One in two hundred people develop incurable paralysis after infection. In 1955, a vaccine was invented and was introduced on a wide scale. Thanks to global efforts, polio was eliminated from the Western Hemisphere by 1994, and has greatly decreased worldwide.
This new interactive map shows the countries that still have cases of wild polio virus, and the countries with circulating vaccine-derived polio virus.
The WHO European Region was declared polio-free in 2002. Neither wild-type nor vaccine-type viruses were notified in the WHO European Region in 2017, but the risk of importation and subsequent transmission remains high in certain countries.
