38 Countries At-Risk for Polio in April 2025

When the World Health Organization announced polio outbreaks remained a Public Health Emergency of International Concern for an additional three months, other health agencies reacted with more detailed disclosures focused on outbreaks.

For example, on April 22, 2025, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reissued a Global Polio Alert—Level 2 advisory regarding polio outbreaks and poliovirus detections in 38 countries.

And the updated European CDC dashboard revealed that vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) was detected in wastewater systems of 14 cities across five European countries in 2025.

In the Pacific Ocean area, a cVDPV2 environmental sample has been reported from Lae City, Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. Located north of Australia, this country previously confirmed that poliovirus was circulating in 2018.

Both the CDC and ECDC recommend that adults who have previously completed the routine polio vaccine series receive a single, lifetime booster dose of polio vaccine before traveling to any destination listed.

In the United States, the IPV polio vaccine is available for purchase at most pharmacies.