Bulgaria’s response to cases of poliomyelitis caused by imported wild poliovirus

In May this year, Eurosurveillance Weekly reported on the occurrence of two cases of poliomyelitis in Bulgaria (1). These cases were important because they were the first of the disease in Bulgaria since 1991 and in Europe since 1998, and might therefore have constituted a setback for the World Health Organization (WHO) European Region, which was on track for certification of polio eradication (2). The patients – two children of Romany origin – were infected with a wild poliovirus closely related to a strain isolated from India in July 2000.