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Health Policy and Planning; 6(2): 107-118
© 1991

review-article

Poliomyelitis: what are the prospects for eradication and rehabilitation?

DEAN T JAMISON1, ALBERTO M TORRES2, LINCOLN C CHEN3 and JOSEPH L MELNICK4

1University of California Los Angeles
2Harvard School of Public Health USA
3Harvard School of Public Health USA
4Baylor College of Medicine USA

Correspondence: Professor Dean T. Jamison, 341 Moore Hall, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1521, USA

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 74% of the world's children were fully immunized against poliomyelitis by early 1990; even so, the disease is still paralysing almost a quarter of a million individuals each year and killing perhaps 25 000. This paper - one of a series undertaken on specific diseases for the World Bank's Health Sector Priorities Review on diseases of major importance in the developing world - reviews available evidence on the cost-effectiveness of polio prevention (by immunization) and on case management of polio to minimize and rehabilitate disability. The power of available vaccines and the characteristics of the disease suggest the technical feasibility of eradication of disease from polio (but not of the polio virus) as a goal for the year 2000. With sustained national and international support, it is thus reasonable to hope for eradication by that year (or soon thereafter). Rehabilitation of individuals disabled from polio (and other causes) has been neglected both by most governments and by the international community. Although hard evidence on cost and effectiveness remains to be assembled, what is known strongly suggests that effective rehabilitation programmes could be implemented at modest cost and with economic and welfare benefits far exceeding cost.


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