How many people remember seeing a child with polio? The success of vaccination programs has created a situation that elegantly illustrates how we think about risk and danger. Because most people have no experience with the disease, many do not perceive it to be a danger anymore.

However other areas of the world unfortunately do have children infected by polio virus. Dr. Bruce Aylward, Coordinator of the Global Polio Eradication Program of the World Health Organization (WHO) for almost 10 years helped develop the model of polio vaccination provision that is now being adapted by health agencies to deliver other forms of preventative medicine to remote and disadvantaged areas around the globe.

• Dr. Bruce Aylward, Coordinator of the Global Polio Eradication Program of the World Health Organization He began work with the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1992 as a medical officer for the agency’s immunization program and went on to join the Polio Eradication Initiative, becoming the coordinator for the program in 1998. In this position he has done a great deal to ensure the achievement of WHO’s goal of global eradication of the disease, which has seen the number of cases drop from 360,000 in 125 countries in 1988, to 3,000 in 2000, to fewer than 700 in early 2003 and now just over 250 in 2007 so far.