Just in time for Spring Break, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a travel warning as cases of poliovirus continue to rise worldwide.
Fortunately, not many of the affected countries are on the traditional list of spring break destinations!
In March 2026, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a level 2 travel advisory for 32 different countries across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. The CDC issued the warning because the affected regions have cases of polio spreading among their populations. The following countries were named in the official advisory:
- Afghanistan
- Algeria
- Angola
- Benin
- Burkina Faso
- Cameroon
- Central African Republic
- Chad
- Côte d’Ivoire
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Djibouti
- Ethiopia
- Finland
- Gaza
- Germany
- Ghana
- Guinea
- Israel
- Niger
- Nigeria
- Pakistan
- Papua New Guinea
- Poland
- Senegal
- Somalia
- South Sudan
- Spain
- Sudan
- Tanzania
- United Kingdom
- Yemen
- Zimbabwe
The CDC is urging travelers to check their vaccination status for polio.
Polio is a crippling and potentially deadly disease that affects the nervous system, according to the CDC. While many people infected with the virus don’t experience symptoms, some may develop fever, fatigue, nausea, headache or muscle stiffness. In rare cases, the disease can cause permanent paralysis or death, particularly if breathing muscles are affected.The virus spreads primarily through contact with contaminated food or water, often due to poor hand hygiene. Because the virus lives in the feces of infected individuals, it can spread when people don’t wash their hands properly after using the bathroom.For travelers, vaccination remains the best protection.The CDC recommends that children and adults be up to date on their routine polio vaccines before any international travel. Adults who previously completed the full vaccine series may also receive a single lifetime booster dose if they are traveling to a destination where poliovirus is circulating.
As a reminder, the United States withdrew from the World Health Organization earlier this year.
The United States formally withdrew from the World Health Organization on Thursday, making good on an executive order that President Trump issued on his first day in office pledging to leave the international organization that coordinates global responses to public health threats.While the United States is walking away from the organization, a senior official with the Department of Health and Human Services told reporters on Thursday that the Trump administration was considering some type of narrow, limited engagement with W.H.O. global networks that track infectious diseases, including influenza.
In a bid to remain relevant, WHO issued a statement during the 44th meeting of the Emergency Committee under the International Health Regulations (IHR or Regulations) .
The committee concluded that the international spread of polioviruses still constitutes a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern,” driven by ongoing wild poliovirus type 1 transmission confined to Afghanistan and Pakistan, continued detection in wastewater in Germany, and persistent circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (especially type 2) outbreaks across multiple regions. One can only speculate as to why Germany is having issues (/sarcasm).
This committee cited insecurity, access constraints, surveillance gaps, and large pockets of under‑immunized children in areas such as southern Afghanistan, South Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Karachi in Pakistan, the Lake Chad Basin, the Horn of Africa, Nigeria, and northern Yemen as reasons risks are high and response efforts are complicated. I suspect no amount of money or effort in any of those regions is going to control polio outbreaks, or the spread of any other pathogen that resides within those communities.
The committee issued plenty of temporary recommendations, including urging affected states to treat polio as a national public health emergency, strengthening immunization programs, tightening vaccination requirements for international travelers from infected countries… and securing adequate financing to sustain eradication activities.
“Sustaining eradication activities” is probably code for non-governmental agency funding. The US spent billions on all sorts of eradication activities. The only one that worked was smallpox, and that program wrapped up decades ago. WHO has been living off that glorious achievement for 45 years.
The current CDC approach is the correct one: get informed, assess your status, and make the vaccination decisions appropriate for you — especially if Gaza or Somalia are your go-to spots for spring vacation.
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