In 1988, the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution for the worldwide eradication of polio, marking the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), spearheaded by national governments, WHO, Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and UNICEF, and later joined by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

Since then, the incidence of polio worldwide has been reduced by 99%, and the world stands on the threshold of eradicating a human disease globally for only the second time in history, after smallpox in 1980.