"Give up on polio eradication," WHO told

Following reports that the World Health Organization has requested an urgent injection of $575.0 million for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (Marketletter March 5), there have been calls for the program to downscale its ambitions and admit defeat in the effort to eliminate polio worldwide. The campaign against polio is in its 19th year.

Donald Henderson, the former head of the WHO's smallpox eradication program, which eliminated the disease within a decade, told the Washington Post: "many people wonder why we are spending all this time and effort on polio when there are much bigger problems."

Ellie Ehrenfeld, a member of the WHO's Advisory Committee for Polio Eradication, who was reportedly not invited to the February meeting of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in Geneva, Switzerland, questions the possibility of eliminating the disease. "Even if things quiet down in the countries where we have problems, there will be another quiet area that bursts into flames," she told the Post.