The meeting of Technical Advisory Group (TAG) on Poliomyelitis Eradication in Afghanistan was held 24–25 January 2016 in Kabul, Afghanistan. The meeting was attended by Dr Stanekzai, Senior Advisor to Minister of Public Health, Dr Kakar, Presidential Polio Focal Point, members of the Afghanistan Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI) team from national and regional levels as well as representatives from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau and the Government of Canada, the last representing all bilateral partners. The last meeting of the Afghanistan TAG was held on 1–2 June 2015 in Islamabad, Pakistan.
There has been significant progress in polio eradication globally with a decrease in the number of cases from 359 in 2014 to 72 in 2015. Nigeria, one of the 3 polio endemic countries, was removed from the list of endemic countries in September 2015. Three outbreaks of wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1), in the Horn of Africa, Middle East and Central Africa, were declared closed in 2015 following outbreak response assessment by an external team of experts.
Afghanistan and Pakistan remain the only 2 endemic countries in the world.
