Nine years ago, the World Health Assembly passed a resolution promising to wipe out polio by the year 2000.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) claims it is well on its way to achieving this target.

Poliomyelitis, to give it its full name, is a viral disease which was once prevalent all over Europe and the Americas but has now been wiped out in much of the world.

Polio is a highly infectious virus which spreads from the intestines, attacks the brain and spinal cord and can cause paralysis, muscle wastage and death.

As recently as 1988 there were 35,251,000 cases of polio, once known as infantile paralysis, reported worldwide.

By 1996 this had dropped to 1,733,000 and in 1998 it may well drop below the 1,000,000 mark for the first time.

In recent years Pakistan and India have both launched nationwide mass vaccination campaigns in a bid to conquer the crippling disease.

In 1993 Pakistan accounted for one in five of the world's known cases of polio.

Neighbouring India makes up more than half the disease's victims but progress is being made and on one day in January 1996 India managed to vaccinate 93 million children.

The last known case of polio in the western hemisphere was in 1991, when a three-year-old Peruvian boy developed the virus but the Americas are now considered free of the disease.

In China, where eradication has been a priority of the health authorities, the number of cases has fallen from 5,000 in 1990 to three in 1996.

The WHO says: "Despite some obstacles, it now appears that the year 2000 target for global polio eradication could be met."

But the Geneva-based organisation points out it is powerless to act in several polio endemic countries - such as Burma, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo - because of social instability, civil wars or political isolation.

Civil unrest has destroyed the health infrastructure in many of these countries and the consequent fall in immunisation coverage creates fertile ground for new polio epidemics.

Ironically the disease has also spurred the peace process in some parts of the world.

Truces have been declared in Afghanistan, Sudan, Sri Lanka, El Salvador and the Philippines in order for doctors and nurses to visit the war zones and immunise local children.

In El Salvador and the Filipino island of Mindanao these truces built confidence and trust and arguably led to the end of the civil wars.

The WHO estimates it will cost another $700 million (£420 million) - equivalent to six cents (4p) per child - approximately to rid the world of polio and officials in Switzerland point out there is no room for complacency.

They say modern air and sea travel means people in polio endemic countries can easily cross borders and take the disease into previously `safe' nations.



Equally, visitors to these affected countries are prone to picking up the polio virus and bringing it home with them.

The WHO is hoping polio will follow smallpox - which was eradicated in 1977 - into the history books and says once polio is wiped out there will be no need for people to be immunised against it.

"Not only will all parents be free of the fear that their children could be paralysed by polio, but the countries of the world will save $1.5 billion per year forever."