While, as recently as 1988, there were as many as 350,000 cases of Polio per year, there were only 417 cases of polio recognized in 2013. At that time Polio was endemic in just three countries.

Old age … burn[s] and rave[s] at close of day.

So far this year there has been nearly 3 times the global number of cases of Polio as there was last year at this time.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right

It’s not often that scientists will rally around the idea of intentionally pushing an organism to extinction, but this is exactly what disease eradication is – and it is the ultimate goal of all vaccination programs. The eradication of Smallpox has been hailed as one of the great successes in modern medicine. In fact, the philosophical arguments against making eradication the goal are not meant to subvert eradication, but actually to prevent complacence in monitoring programs and to avoid wasting money on tracking down ‘one last case’ of disease.

This said, a goal of the World Health Organization does have an endgame strategy for polio and plans on having it eradicated by 2018.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Despite our best efforts, The Polio Eradication Initiative, in its May 2014 Special Alert, reports, “WHO Director-General Margaret Chan declared the recent international spread of wild poliovirus a ‘public health emergency of international concern,’ and issued Temporary Recommendations under the International Health Regulations (2005) to prevent further spread of the disease as the high season approaches.” This declaration has the weight of international law for the 194 signee countries.

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Obstacles to final eradication remain largely human and political. Thinkprogress.org’s Hayes Brown reports that, “Pakistan has been the epicenter of attacks on vaccination programs, following the revelation that the CIA in 2010 used a fake vaccination campaign to hide their intelligence gathering efforts to locate Osama bin Laden. Since then, the Pakistani Taliban have now come to see all health workers as suspect and prime for targeting”

War, especially civil war, has led to countries such as Somalia, Pakistan and The Gaza Strip of Israel becoming reservoirs for disease and expanding the number of countries with wild polio.

Nevertheless, Even as polio does Rage against our efforts, it is still much reduced and there is no reason to give up hope that a combination of political and medical interventions will be sufficient to add polio to that short list of diseases that are ‘forever gone.’