A Drop of Tension

Abstract

This editorial introduces a series of articles on lessons for health communication found in the experience of the campaign to eradicate polio. It focuses on the inevitable tensions and contradictions faced by the campaign against polio as well as other major health initiatives. It argues that communication has been an essential tool for navigating the complex negotiations, compromises, and changes in direction needed in the polio eradication campaign and that the lessons learned from the polio experience are applicable to many other health interventions.

Notes

¹The World Health Organization (WHO) launched an intensive campaign to eradicate smallpox in 1967. The World Health Assembly determined it had been eradicated in 1980.

²At this time, there were seven remaining endemic countries, but 98% of all cases were found in India, Nigeria, and Pakistan, and for the most part concentrate in specific regions of those countries. Afghanistan also is mentioned here because of the way the virus circulates between it and Pakistan.

³See for example, Kaufmann and Feldbaum (2009).