The U.S. - Japan Cooperation on Health

Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI)

The United States and Japan place high priority on polio eradication efforts, which are successfully wiping out a preventable, debilitating disease. Focusing on sub-Sahara Africa, and South Asia, the United States through USAID, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Japan work together with WHO, UNICEF, Rotary International, and host country governments in the areas of vaccine procurement, social mobilization, planning and training, cold chain and logistics management, disease surveillance and monitoring and evaluation. Both countries want to improve routine immunization and disease control programs as a legacy of eradication.

Polio has been successfully eradicated from the Western Hemisphere and efforts are underway to achieve global eradication by the year 2005. There has been a 99% decline in reported polio cases from 1988 to 2001. Today polio remains in only 10 countries, down from 125 in 1988. The United States and Japan are committed to keeping polio-free areas polio-free and increasing involvement of NGOs in PEI. Both sides hope to leave a polio-free world as a gift to the children of the 21st century.