World Polio Day 2025: A Defining Moment
It is time to pull through on efforts to rid the world of polio once and for all — or continue managing it through costly outbreak responses, UNICEF argues in a new call to action.
Five facts about polio, and how to support the fight
With polio transmission rates near historic lows — and global health funding under threat — the world faces a defining moment in polio eradication, UNICEF warns: either finish the job now, or face recurring outbreaks and continued preventable suffering.
Here are five facts about polio — and what it will take to end it once and for all.
1. Polio is entirely preventable.
Polio, a highly infectious viral disease, can cause irreversible paralysis, can be fatal, and children under 5 are most at risk. There is no cure, but there are safe and effective vaccines available. No child should have to suffer from a disease that is entirely preventable.
Protecting a community requires a vaccination coverage rate of at least 95 percent. This allows for the small percentage of the population who are not eligible due to age or a health condition.
Related: Defeating Polio Means Vaccinating Hard-to-Reach Children
2. Eradication is within reach — but only if we overcome complex challenges that allow the virus to keep circulating.
The number of wild polio cases has fallen by 99.9 percent since 1988 — the year UNICEF and partners launched the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) — saving an estimated 1.5 million lives and generating a savings of some $27 billion in treatment and outbreak response costs. More than 20 million people are walking today who otherwise wouldn't be thanks to polio vaccination efforts.
The disease remains endemic in only two countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan, down from 125 countries when global eradication efforts began 37 years ago.
Despite this incredible progress, polio cases persist, even in countries that have previously eliminated the disease. The virus continues to circulate due to weak health systems, conflict and displacement, a decline of trust in vaccines and global funding cuts, among other factors. Any lapse in immunization coverage opens the door to an outbreak.
There have been 188 polio cases recorded in the first nine months of 2025, 562 cases recorded in all of 2024, and 1,253 cases recorded in 2020 — compared to 106 cases in 2015.
Related: Moving Toward the Finish Line in the Polio Fight
3. Cuts to global health funding make this final stage of eradication the most challenging yet.
The impact of funding cuts on polio eradication efforts is further compounded by access constraints, vaccine hesitancy fueled by misinformation and budget limitations in countries most at risk of outbreaks. Decades of eradication efforts have shown that when immunization rates stall and surveillance systems weaken, polio regains ground. The resurgence of the virus in countries that were previously polio-free demonstrates just how fragile and non-linear progress against the disease can be.
In a new advocacy brief released for World Polio Day 2025, UNICEF argues that an investment of $6.9 billion toward polio eradication between 2022 and 2029 could yield billions more dollars in savings over the coming decades by eliminating the long-term costs of controlling the disease.
Read more in UNICEF's new advocacy brief, "Polio: A defining moment for eradication"
4. UNICEF helps to vaccinate more than 400 million children against polio globally every year.
As the world's largest procurer of vaccines, UNICEF plays a critical role in immunizing 45 percent of the world's children to protect them from vaccine-preventable diseases. These efforts include helping to vaccinate more than 400 million children against polio annually.
Working with governments, community health workers, social mobilizers and others, UNICEF is committed to ensuring that no child is left unprotected. Alongside Rotary International, the Gates Foundation and other GPEI partners, UNICEF is also advancing disease surveillance, emergency response and health system strengthening — all investments that will benefit children's health long after polio is eradicated.
Learn more about how UNICEF is working with partners to end polio
5. There is a way forward, but it requires sustained leadership, renewed commitment and urgent action.
UNICEF calls on governments, donors and partners to:
- prioritize vaccination of all children against polio, especially in conflict and humanitarian settings; strategies must ensure that children who are hardest to reach do not miss out on vaccination services
- strengthen immunization systems to ensure every child has access to vaccines
- protect humanitarian and health care workers delivering vaccines
- maintain and support surveillance systems to support faster detection and response, and to ensure children are protected as quickly as possible from outbreaks
- provide critical resources to GPEI and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to quickly halt outbreaks and ensure children are vaccinated
- elevate polio eradication on political agendas at all levels, prioritizing innovative solutions and coordinated actions to enhance immunization campaign quality
UNICEF also recommends that governments work to strengthen routine immunization as a foundation for making sure that once polio is gone, it can't come back. This means integrating immunization with child health and other social services to build efficiency and trust.
Learn about GPEI's new Global Action Plan: a smarter, leaner and more focused blueprint to end polio and build resilient health systems
World Polio Day 2025
In a website post ahead of World Polio Day (Oct. 24, 2025), GPEI refers to the ongoing polio fight as a rare example of what global collaboration can achieve — pointing to the recent, successful outbreak response in Gaza, when hundreds of thousands of children were reached with vaccinations.
Since March 5, 2025, no poliovirus has been detected in Gaza — an achievement that GPEI calls "a powerful reminder that there are no biological or technical barriers to eradication, only the choices we make."
Right now, the lives of the most vulnerable children hang in the balance as conflicts and crises jeopardize the care and protection that they deserve. Dependable, uninterrupted and effective foreign aid is critical to the well-being of millions of children. Please contact your members of Congress and urge them to support ongoing U.S. investments in foreign assistance.
HOW TO HELP
There are many ways to make a difference
War, famine, poverty, natural disasters — threats to the world's children keep coming. But UNICEF won't stop working to keep children healthy and safe.
UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories — more places than any other children's organization. UNICEF has the world's largest humanitarian warehouse and, when disaster strikes, can get supplies almost anywhere within 72 hours. Constantly innovating, always advocating for a better world for children, UNICEF works to ensure that every child can grow up healthy, educated, protected and respected.
Would you like to help give all children the opportunity to reach their full potential? There are many ways to get involved.
