Examining GPEI Strategic Plan to end polio

Writing in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's "Impatient Optimists" blog, Apoorva Mallya, a program officer for the foundation's vaccine delivery team, highlights a recent Lancet editorial examining the Global Polio Eradication Initiative's (GPEI) six-year Strategic Plan to end polio. "As the editorial notes, there have been plans with target dates and milestones in the past, which unfortunately have been missed. However, there are four elements that set this plan apart from previous ones," including a focus on the countries where polio remains, methodically laid out steps for going forward, an emphasis on the strengthening of comprehensive routine immunization systems, and plans "to shape a legacy for polio eradication," he writes (3/13).