Bill Gates:We are achingly close to eradicating polio. Let’s finish the job

Bill Gates salutes as his heroes the health and education workers whose vaccine programmes are on the brink of wiping out forever the debilitating, often deadly, disease.

THE world’s progress in fighting polio might be one of the best-kept secrets in global health. Indeed, my heroes for 2015 are the men and women on the front line in the fight against the disease.

Since 1988, the number of annual cases of polio worldwide has dropped more than 99.9%. The disease used to paralyse an estimated 350,000 children every year; in 2015, the number of cases is likely to be fewer than 100.