Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative: Ninth Report
May 2014 52 pages
Excerpts from Executive Summary; Editor’s bolded text

…As the end-2014 deadline fast approaches, Nigeria and Pakistan are both at risk of failing to stop transmission in time (with Pakistan’s risk extreme). There is a significant risk of one or more of the current outbreaks becoming prolonged. There is serious risk of failure to anticipate and prevent an outbreak elsewhere. Given these factors, the IMB’s considered analysis is that the latest strategic plan goal of interrupting transmission by the end of 2014 stands at extreme risk.

The World Health Assembly has rightly declared polio eradication a programmatic emergency for global public health. WHO has rightly called the spread of polio a public health emergency of international concern. There is every reason why polio must be eradicated – and fast. Failure to do so is inexcusable. This last 1% cannot be allowed to drag on any longer. The program is failing children and families in the poorest parts of the world. These broken promises mean that every child paralysed in 2015 will be a child grossly let down, their paralysis an avoidable catastrophe…