Tracking down the recent surge of polio virus in endemic and outbreak countries

Continuous and progressive efforts are being made globally to eradicate the incidence of poliovirus. The detrimental nature of polio calls for action of global vaccination. Owing to large-scale vaccination efforts, many countries have been declared polio-free and people are fully vaccinated against poliovirus. However, concern still remains as new cases are being identified in countries declared polio-free. This scenario is particularly noticed due to the comprised healthcare system in the past 3 years of the Corona pandemic. Conditions for lower-middle-income countries are more problematic, where there are meager healthcare resources and the burden on the healthcare system is higher. Studies indicate some cases of non-paralytic species of polio including cVDPV1, cVDPV2, and cVDPV3 in the group of outbreak countries. However, the major problem is associated with wild-type poliovirus, that is, WPV1 which leads to paralytic disease and is still present in endemic countries, such as Afghanistan and Pakistan. The incidence rate of wild polio cases has significantly decreased in comparison to the past years but the problem needs to be dealt with at the grass-roots level. In this article, the most recent data have been collected pertaining to the incidence of multivariant species of poliovirus, with a special focus on endemic and outbreak countries. A short overview of challenges to vaccination and a recommendatory overview has also been included for dealing with polio surges.