As we enter February 2016, GPEI bids farewell to Hamid Jafari, the former director of GPEI, whose tenure has seen the removal of Nigeria from the list of polio-endemic countries, certification of the eradication of wild poliovirus type 2, and the lowest number of cases reported in the fewest number of places in any one year. GPEI welcomes Michel Zaffran, former coordinator of the WHO Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI), as its new director, as we enter a pivotal part of the Endgame Plan.
Iraq has introduced the inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) into its routine immunization system. Read more here.
Environmental surveillance is playing an increasingly important role in ensuring that the poliovirus is found, wherever it continues to circulate. Find out more about environmental surveillance through this series of photographs.
There are nine weeks to go until the globally synchronized switch from the trivalent to bivalent oral polio vaccine, an important milestone in achieving a polio-free world. Read more here.
Source: Global Polio Eradication Initiative
Country: Afghanistan, Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Iraq, Kenya, Lao People's Democratic Republic (the), Liberia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Myanmar, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Ukraine, World
