THE campaign to eradicate polio is one of the great medical success stories.
The disease used to kill or paralyse hundreds of thousands of people every year.
But since vaccination began in 1955, the virus has been wiped out everywhere but
a few regions of Asia and Africa. The World Health Organization now plans to
eradicate polio by 2005. Then vaccination can stop.
But some polio experts, while paying lip service to this goal, privately
doubt it will be that easy. The reason for this doubt is the very weapon that
defeated polio. The main vaccine being used to eradicate…
