The global campaign to eradicate polio has received a boost with major advances towards wiping out the disease in India, one of the four remaining countries where it is endemic, and a donation to the World Health Organization of a strain to make vaccines.

But the campaign, spearheaded by WHO, Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Unicef, also faces serious setbacks. These include an increase in numbers of cases this year in the other three countries where it is endemic—Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria—and imports of the disease into formerly polio free China and some African countries.

On 20 September WHO said …