The new Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), South Korean Jong-Wook Lee, announced today that the wild poliovirus can be eradicated from the human population within 3 years.

"We have a great opportunity," said Lee. "For the first time this century, we can eradicate a terrible disease from our planet."

Lee said that this month the world has seen the lowest number of paralytic polio cases since records began: 235. Some 99% of the cases were in India, with its faltering mass vaccination campaigns, Pakistan, and Egypt, and efforts will focus on these countries. The cases probably represent about 1% of actual infections in those areas.

But humans are not the only reservoirs of poliovirus. Although no animals carry it, WHO earlier estimated some 10,000 laboratories worldwide carry stocks of the virus.

And, as the WHO's "Global action plan for laboratory containment of wild polioviruses," published this month pointed out, "Less than a year after smallpox was eradicated in 1977, two cases occurred in the United Kingdom, both linked to a smallpox laboratory. The index case worked in a room located directly above the laboratory. Two persons died: the index patient as a result of infection and the director of the laboratory, who took his own life because of the accident." This was Henry Bedson, then professor of medical microbiology at Birmingham University.

"When polio is eradicated every effort must be made to ensure that wild poliovirus is not similarly transmitted from the laboratory to an increasingly susceptible community," said the action plan.

Bruce Aylward, coordinator of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, in which WHO is a partner, told The Scientist at a press conference today that progress on the issue was good.

Countries of the Far East, Europe, and the Americas "have embarked on searching their labs... About 150 countries have begun the process and about 75 have submitted inventories," said Aylward. "We are years ahead of where we were with smallpox in completing this activity… It's a big logistical challenge but definitely a manageable one."

WHO data from February 2003 show that 167 countries have appointed a coordinator to oversee the survey. (China, Japan, and Switzerland are among those with no coordinator.) Of those, 148 countries have started the survey, 80 have submitted an inventory, and nine have actually destroyed stocks.

According to WHO's laboratory action plan, laboratories retaining wild poliovirus, infectious materials, or potential infectious materials will eventually be requested to establish enhanced biosafety level-2 (BSL-2/polio) measures for safe handling.

But some critics feel further research is needed into the oral vaccine—the main vaccination used—notably, into how to avoid the one in 2.5 million cases in which the attenuated Sabin vaccine virus reverts in the patient's gut to wildtype. The injectable, killed Salk vaccine may be safer but is much harder to deliver to poor communities.

Lee has appointed David Heymann as his special representative for polio eradication. Heymann, previously head of WHO's communicable diseases section, was responsible for the control of severe acute respiratory syndrome. He also worked in India 1974–1975 on the global eradication of smallpox.

Major partners of WHO in initiative are Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the United Nations Children's Fund.