Mr. Chairman, like myself, some people in this room may remember the fearful time in the 1940s and 1950s when thousands of Americans were paralyzed by polio every year. Ultimately, global polio eradication is the most cost-effective and permanent way to protect the United States from imported polio cases. No single country can be safe from polio until all countries are free of polio. Eradication is the permanent reduction to zero of the worldwide incidence of infection caused by a specific agent. Eradication creates an environment where intervention measures are no longer needed.
Elimination is the reduction to zero of the incidence of infection in a defined geographic area.
Although the United States has been free from indigenous polio since the early 1970s, polio cases resulting from imported polio virus occurred during the late 1970s, and such events remain a threat in the 1990s, although, thankfully, a diminishing one. Virtually all measles cases in the United States are now directly or indirectly imported from other countries. By contrast, no American has suffered from smallpox since global eradication was reached in 1977. Successful eradication programs save significant amounts of money. The report also estimates the real rate of return on the smallpox investment for the United States to be 46 percent per year since smallpox was eradicated.