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Global Certification Commission
AbbreviationGCC
FormationFebruary 16, 1995; 29 years ago (1995-02-16)
Legal statusActive
HeadquartersGeneva, Switzerland
Parent organization
World Health Organization

The World Health Organization (WHO) created the Global Commission for the Certification of the Eradication of Poliomyelitis (commonly known as the Global Certification Commission or GCC) in 1995 to independently verify the eradication of wild poliovirus.[1] The GCC certified the worldwide eradication of indigenous wild poliovirus type 2 on 20 September 2015,[2][3] and wild poliovirus type 3 on 17 October 2019.[4][5] In addition, five of the six World Health Organization Regions certified their status as free of indigenous transmission of all three serotypes of wild poliovirus (types 1, 2, and 3):

Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only remaining polio endemic countries, with polio cases caused by type 1 wild poliovirus reported in 2021. Since 1988, international efforts led by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative have reduced poliomyelitis cases caused by wild poliovirus by over 99.99% using vaccination.

History

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In the 1980s, Rotary International led a successful campaign to end polio in the Americas with support from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) (for technical assistance, including surveillance), Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)/World Health Organization (WHO) (for coordination and project management), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) (for vaccine procurement), and other funding partners.[11] Demonstration of the potential for eradication by the Americas supported interest in global polio eradication. In 1988, the World Health Assembly, the governing body of the World Health Organization, approved Resolution WHA41.28, which committed to global eradication of poliomyelitis by the year 2000.[12] By 1993, coordination of global activities on polio eradication by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) involved 4 spearheading partners led by the WHO Secretariat - WHO, UNICEF, Rotary International, and CDC - and the GPEI received broad support from world leaders, development agencies, and both public and private donors.[13] The list of core GPEI partners expanded to include the Gates Foundation in 2013 and GAVI in 2020.[14]

Following the first regional certification of polio eradication in 1994 by the Americas,[6] the WHO convened the first meeting of the Global Certification Commission in Geneva, Switzerland, on 16–17 February 1995.[15][16] The commission was initially established as a 13-person board and assigned the responsibility of delineating the criterion for the verification and certification of eradication of the wild poliovirus.[17]

The GCC certified the global eradication of wild poliovirus type 2 (WPV2) at its 14th meeting on 20 September 2015.[2][3] which led to the launch of containment efforts for type 2 wild poliovirus.[18] The GCC certified the global eradication of wild poliovirus type 3 (WPV3) at its 20th meeting on 17 October 2019.[4][5] Wild poliovirus type 1 is the only type of wild poliovirus that remains uninterrupted globally. The GCC held its 21st meeting in July 2021.[15]

Structure

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The Global Certification Commission is the top-level decision-making body of a three-tier process. Each WHO member state's national polio program appoints a National Certification Committee (NCC). These NCCs meet annually until national certification to report on the status of national polio surveillance and elimination. A country is regarded as polio free or non-endemic if no cases have been detected by high-quality surveillance for a year.[19][20] The Regional Certification Committees (RCC) meet annually until regional certification to evaluate the reports from the NCCs. The six RCCs, which are panels of WHO-appointed experts who are independent of both the NCCs and the GPEI, are charged with certification of their WHO region. The chairs of the six regional committees comprise the Global Certification Commission, which meets as needed for global decision making.[21]

Regional certification

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The six WHO regions with a marker for the locations of WHO regional headquarters, which may be different from the Regional Certification Commission headquarters

The Region of the Americas certified polio eradication in 1994.[6] As part of the regional certification process, the expert committee established the criteria of "verification of the absence of virologically confirmed indigenous poliomyelitis cases in the Americas for a period of at least 3 years under circumstances of adequate surveillance,"[22] which the GCC adopted as its criteria at its first meeting.[15] The criteria for adequate surveillance included finding and examining at least one case of nonpolio acute flaccid paralysis per 100,000 children under 15 years old.[22][17] A statistical analysis of regional data[23] and mathematical infection transmission modeling [24] supported the criteria. The modeling showed that with a perfect surveillance system, any wild poliovirus transmission would be detected within 3–4 years with very high (e.g., 95%) confidence.[24]

With the criteria established, the GCC resolved to certify each of the remaining regions until the disease was eradicated globally.[17] The Western Pacific regional certification occurred in 2000[7] and Europe certified polio eradication in 2002.[8] The Southeast Asia region certified polio eradication in 2014.[9][25]

In 1996, African nations signed the Yaoundé Declaration on Polio Eradication in Africa, and Nelson Mandela started the "Kick Polio out of Africa" campaign. In Africa, the most recent region to certify polio eradication in 2020,[10] regional certification efforts began in 1998, when the WHO regional director for Africa appointed 16 people to the Africa Regional Certification Commission (ARCC).[26] Based in Yaoundé, Cameroon, and led by Rose Leke as chairperson as of 2020,[27][28] the group was tasked with overseeing the eradication effort in the Africa WHO region.[26] The independent body is the only organisation recognized to certify that polio has been eradicated from the region.[29] On 25 August 2020, the ARCC declared that wild poliovirus has been eliminated in its region which includes 47 countries spanning most of Africa.[26][30] The last reported case of polio in the region was on 21 August 2016, in Borno, Nigeria.[31][28] Among the conditions for certification of the region was a requirement that 95% of the population be immunised.[32]

The Eastern Mediterranean Region is the only WHO region remaining that has not certified wild poliovirus eradication.[33] The region includes 22 countries spanning from Morocco to Pakistan,[34] several of which have individually eradicated the disease. This region experiences significant political unrest, humanitarian crises, forced displacement, and deterioration of health care systems, which hinder eradication efforts.[35] Syria, Yemen, and Somalia are categorized as very-high-risk, and Iraq, Sudan, and Libya are categorized as high-risk, while Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries in which the disease remains endemic as of 2019.[35] Since 2007, people administering polio vaccines have been the target of violence in Pakistan.[36] A 2011 US Central Intelligence Agency operation used a hepatitis vaccination program as a cover to search DNA evidence to confirm the location of Osama bin Laden.[37][36] Following his killing the same year, Islamist insurgents in the region have become more hostile to vaccination efforts. More recently, the hostility has been exasperated by the United States' expansion of the use of drone strikes in northwest Pakistan;[36] in June 2012, Mullah Nazir, leader of the Federally Administered Tribal Agencies, distributed leaflets calling for a ban on polio vaccination with the goal of persuading the US to stop drone strikes in the area.[38]

Support from modeling

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Building on modeling used to support regional polio certification in the Americas,[24] additional modeling explored how different characteristics of the three serotypes of wild poliovirus and the specific conditions in the countries with the last reported regional and global cases could impact changes in confidence about no circulation with increasing time since the last reported case.[39][40] Specific modeling studies for Nigeria,[40][41][42] which reported the last wild poliovirus cases in Africa, supported African regional certification. Modeling of the countries with the last type 3 wild poliovirus cases (i.e., Nigeria,[40][42] Pakistan and Afghanistan[43]) supported global certification of type 3 wild poliovirus eradication.

Sensitivity of monitoring for circulation can be improved by environmental surveillance, which relies on sampling sewage.[40][44] The availability of environmental surveillance data can shorten the time required to achieve high confidence about no circulation of poliovirus in a population, but this depends on the quality of polio surveillance.[40][45]

References

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  1. ^ Hecht, Alan (2009). Polio. Infobase Publishing. p. 83. ISBN 978-1-4381-0161-3.
  2. ^ a b "14th Meeting of the Global Commission for the Certification of Poliomyelitis Eradication (GCC), Bali, Indonesia, 20-21 September, 2015" (PDF). World Health Organization. Archived (PDF) from the original on 28 November 2021. Retrieved 24 November 2021.
  3. ^ a b "Global eradication of wild poliovirus type 2 declared". Global Polio Eradication Initiative. 20 September 2015. Archived from the original on 28 September 2015. Retrieved 24 November 2021.
  4. ^ a b "Report from the Twentieth Meeting of the Global Commission for Certification of Poliomyelitis Eradication" (PDF). World Health Organization. Archived (PDF) from the original on 23 June 2021. Retrieved 24 November 2021.
  5. ^ a b "GPEI-Two out of three wild poliovirus strains eradicated". Archived from the original on 7 November 2019. Retrieved 24 November 2021.
  6. ^ a b c Centers for Disease Control Prevention (CDC) (7 October 1994). "Certification of poliomyelitis eradication--the Americas, 1994" (PDF). MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 43 (39): 720–722. PMID 7522302. Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 September 2017. Retrieved 24 November 2021.
  7. ^ a b Yamazaki, S.; Toraya, H. (2001). "(General News) Major Milestone reached in Global Polio Eradication: Western Pacific Region is certified Polio-Free". Health Educ. Res. 16 (1): 110–111. doi:10.1093/her/16.1.109.
  8. ^ a b "Europe achieves historic milestone as Region is declared polio-free". 2002. Archived from the original on 16 May 2010. Retrieved 24 November 2021.
  9. ^ a b "WHO South-East Asia Region certified polio-free". WHO. 27 March 2014. Archived from the original on 27 March 2014. Retrieved 27 March 2014.
  10. ^ a b "Africa eradicates wild poliovirus". WHO Regional Office for Africa. 29 August 2023. Archived from the original on 27 August 2020. Retrieved 28 November 2021.
  11. ^ "Current Trends Progress Toward Eradicating Poliomyelitis from the Americas". 11 August 1989. Archived from the original on 18 March 2021. Retrieved 24 November 2021.
  12. ^ "Global eradication of poliomyelitis by the year 2000" (PDF). 13 May 1988. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 December 2021. Retrieved 24 November 2021.
  13. ^ "Progress Toward Global Eradication of Poliomyelitis, 1988-1993". 15 July 1994. Archived from the original on 6 May 2021. Retrieved 24 November 2021.
  14. ^ "GPEI welcomes the strong commitment of partners at Global Vaccine Summit". 6 July 2020. Archived from the original on 24 November 2021. Retrieved 24 November 2021.
  15. ^ a b c "Global Certification Commission". World Health Organization. Archived from the original on 28 November 2021. Retrieved 29 November 2021.
  16. ^ "Report of the 1st Meeting of the Global Commission for the Certification of the Eradication of Poliomyelitis" (PDF). WHO.int. World Health Organization. 1995. Archived (PDF) from the original on 20 January 2022. Retrieved 24 September 2020.
  17. ^ a b c Technical Consultative Group to the World Health Organization on the Global Eradication of Poliomyelitis (1 January 2002). ""Endgame" Issues for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative". Clinical Infectious Diseases. 34 (1): 72–77. doi:10.1086/338262. ISSN 1058-4838. PMID 11731948.
  18. ^ Previsani, Nicoletta; et al. (23 June 2017). "Progress Toward Containment of Poliovirus Type 2 – Worldwide, 2017". MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 66 (24): 649–652. doi:10.15585/mmwr.mm6624a5. ISSN 0149-2195. PMC 5657795. PMID 28640795.
  19. ^ "WHO Removes Nigeria from Polio-Endemic List". World Health Organization (WHO) (Press release). Archived from the original on 27 September 2015. Retrieved 10 October 2017.
  20. ^ "The poliovirus transmission in Lao People's Democratic Republic has ceased" (Press release). World Health Organization (WHO). 6 March 2017. Archived from the original on 31 October 2018. Retrieved 4 April 2017.
  21. ^ Datta, S. Deblina; et al. (July 2017). "National, Regional and Global Certification Bodies for Polio Eradication: A Framework for Verifying Measles Elimination". The Journal of Infectious Diseases. 216 (1): S351–S354. doi:10.1093/infdis/jiw578. PMC 5853984. PMID 28838172.
  22. ^ a b Expanded Program on Immunization, Pan American Health Organization (1993). "Strategies for the Certification of the Eradication of Wild Poliovirus Transmission in the Americas". Bulletin of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). 27 (3): 287–96. Archived from the original on 2 December 2021. Retrieved 2 December 2021.
  23. ^ Debanne SM, Rowland DY (1998). "Statistical certification of eradication of poliomyelitis in the Americas". Math Bio. 150 (1): 83–103. doi:10.1016/S0025-5564(98)00007-8. PMID 9654894.
  24. ^ a b c Eichner M, Dietz K (1996). "Eradication of poliomyelitis: when can one be sure that polio virus transmission has been terminated?". Am J Epidemiol. 143 (8): 816–22. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a008820. PMID 8610692.
  25. ^ Bahl, Sunil; et al. (1 February 2018). "Global Polio Eradication – Way Ahead". The Indian Journal of Pediatrics. 85 (2): 124–131. doi:10.1007/s12098-017-2586-8. ISSN 0973-7693. PMC 5775388. PMID 29302865.
  26. ^ a b c Africa Regional Certification Commission (1 October 2020). "Certifying the interruption of wild poliovirus transmission in the WHO African region on the turbulent journey to a polio-free world". The Lancet Global Health. 8 (10): e1345–e1351. doi:10.1016/S2214-109X(20)30382-X. ISSN 2214-109X. PMC 7525084. PMID 32916086.
  27. ^ "'Momentous milestone' as Africa eradicates wild poliovirus". UN News. 25 August 2020. Archived from the original on 27 August 2020. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  28. ^ a b Allison, Simon (25 August 2020). "Good news: Africa is declared free of wild polio". The Mail & Guardian. Archived from the original on 27 August 2020. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  29. ^ Pai, Bilkisu Halilu (18 June 2018). "Africa Regional Certification Commission meeting begins in Abuja". Voice of Nigeria. Archived from the original on 27 August 2020. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  30. ^ "Annuncio storico dell'Oms: "L'Africa è libera dalla polio"". La Repubblica (in Italian). 25 August 2020. Archived from the original on 27 August 2020. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  31. ^ Umeh, Gregory C.; et al. (13 December 2018). "Acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) surveillance intensification for polio certification in Kaduna state, Nigeria: lessons learnt, 2015–2016". BMC Public Health. 18 (Suppl 4): 1310. doi:10.1186/s12889-018-6186-y. ISSN 1471-2458. PMC 6291918. PMID 30541509.
  32. ^ Scherbel-Ball, Naomi (25 August 2020). "Africa declared free of polio". BBC News. Archived from the original on 26 August 2020. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  33. ^ Abbany, Zulfikar (25 August 2020). "Polio eradication in Africa points to challenges ahead". DW. Archived from the original on 23 September 2020. Retrieved 24 September 2020.
  34. ^ Turk-Adawi, Karam; et al. (February 2018). "Cardiovascular disease in the Eastern Mediterranean region: epidemiology and risk factor burden". Nature Reviews. Cardiology. 15 (2): 106–119. doi:10.1038/nrcardio.2017.138. hdl:10315/38299. ISSN 1759-5010. PMID 28933782. S2CID 4882076. Archived from the original on 25 May 2021. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
  35. ^ a b Al Gunaid, Magid; et al. (29 October 2019). "A Collaborative Initiative to Strengthen Sustainable Public Health Capacity for Polio Eradication and Routine Immunization Activities in the Eastern Mediterranean Region". JMIR Public Health and Surveillance. 5 (4): e14664. doi:10.2196/14664. ISSN 2369-2960. PMC 6913771. PMID 31663863.
  36. ^ a b c Kennedy, Jonathan; et al. (30 September 2015). "Islamist insurgency and the war against polio: a cross-national analysis of the political determinants of polio". Globalization and Health. 11: 40. doi:10.1186/s12992-015-0123-y. ISSN 1744-8603. PMC 4589183. PMID 26420386. In the past few years, Islamist insurgency has had a strong effect on where polio cases occur. This is because Islamist insurgents deliberately undermine the efficacy of immunization campaigns by spreading misinformation and attacking polio workers. The evidence for all types of non-Islamist insurgency is less compelling. First, in some cases the relationship is no longer significant when we control for variables that operationalize the level of development in a country. This suggests that the relationship is spurious.
  37. ^ The Lancet (31 May 2014). "Polio eradication: the CIA and their unintended victims". The Lancet. 383 (9932): 1862. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(14)60900-4. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 24881975. S2CID 40902758.
  38. ^ Boone, Jon (26 June 2012). "Taliban leader bans polio vaccinations in protest at drone strikes". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
  39. ^ Kalkowska DA, Duintjer Tebbens RJ, Thompson KM (1 May 2012). "The probability of undetected wild poliovirus circulation after apparent global interruption of transmission". Am J Epidemiol. 175 (9): 936–49. doi:10.1093/aje/kwr399. PMID 22459121.
  40. ^ a b c d e Kalkowska DA, Duintjer Tebbens RJ, Pallansch MA, Cochi SL, Wassilak SG, Thompson KM (18 February 2015). "Modeling undetected live poliovirus circulation after apparent interruption of transmission: implications for surveillance and vaccination". BMC Infectious Diseases. 15: 66. doi:10.1186/s12879-015-0791-5. ISSN 1471-2334. PMC 4344758. PMID 25886823.
  41. ^ McCarthy, Kevin A.; Chabot-Couture, Guillaume; Shuaib, Faisal (29 September 2016). "A spatial model of Wild Poliovirus Type 1 in Kano State, Nigeria: calibration and assessment of elimination probability". BMC Infectious Diseases. 16 (1): 521. doi:10.1186/s12879-016-1817-3. ISSN 1471-2334. PMC 5041410. PMID 27681708.
  42. ^ a b Kalkowska DA, Thompson KM (29 August 2020). "Modeling Undetected Live Poliovirus Circulation After Apparent Interruption of Transmission: Borno and Yobe in Northeast Nigeria". Risk Analysis. 41 (2): 303–311. doi:10.1111/risa.13486. PMC 7814396. PMID 32348634.
  43. ^ Kalkowska DA, Duintjer Tebbens RJ, Pallansch MA, Thompson KM (8 October 2018). "Modeling Undetected Live Poliovirus Circulation After Apparent Interruption of Transmission: Pakistan and Afghanistan". Risk Analysis. 39 (2): 402–413. doi:10.1111/risa.13214. PMC 7842182. PMID 30296340.
  44. ^ Cowger TL, Burns CC, Sharif S, Gary HE, Iber J, Henderson E, Malik F, Zahoor Zaidi SS, Shaukat S, Rehman L, Pallansch MA, Orenstein WA (25 July 2017). "The role of supplementary environmental surveillance to complement acute flaccid paralysis surveillance for wild poliovirus in Pakistan - 2011-2013". PLOS ONE. 12 (7): e0180608. Bibcode:2017PLoSO..1280608C. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0180608. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 5526532. PMID 28742803.
  45. ^ Kalkowska DA, Duintjer Tebbens RJ, Thompson KM (21 September 2018). "Environmental Surveillance System Characteristics and Impacts on Confidence About No Undetected Serotype 1 Wild Poliovirus Circulation". Risk Analysis. 39 (2): 414–425. doi:10.1111/risa.13193. PMC 7857156. PMID 30239023.
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Global Polio Eradication Initiative

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