It is likely that polio has caused paralysis and death for most of human history. The oldest clearly identifiable reference to polio is an Egyptian stele (pictured), depicting a man with a withered leg, leaning on a staff, which is more than 3,000 years old. By the time of the Great Depression, polio was perhaps the most feared disease on the planet. Epidemics were reported annually and in 1952, polio reached a peak in the United States, with more than 21,000 cases reported. US President Franklin Roosevelt declared a War on Polio during his administration, launching the March of Dimes campaign to develop a vaccine. In 1955, the campaign bore fruit when Dr Jonas Salk developed the first vaccine against polio – an injectable, inactivated polio vaccine. In 1961, Dr Albert Sabin developed a "live" oral polio vaccine (OPV) which rapidly became the vaccine of choice for most national immunization programmes globally. Following the success of smallpox eradication in 1977, Rotary International launched its ambitious dream to eradicate polio in 1985. PolioPlus was born - –the first and largest internationally coordinated private-sector support of a public health initiative. In 1988, the World Health Assembly voted to launch the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI). At that time, wild poliovirus was endemic in 125 countries, paralyzing more than 1000 children every day. Today, indigenous polio has been eliminated from all but three countries –- Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan. The GPEI, spearheaded by national governments, WHO, Rotary International, CDC and UNICEF, is the largest public health initiative the world has known. Since 1988, some two billion children have been immunized against polio thanks to the cooperation of more than 200 countries and 20 million volunteers, backed by an investment of US$ 3 billion.