Part I: The virus, the vaccines and a crippled president --
The Shadowy World of the Poliovirus --
The President and the Poliovirus --
The Salk Vaccine: Ending the Terror of Polio --
A Tool for Eradication: Albert Sabin and the Oral Polio Vaccine --
Part II: The road to eradication --
A Coalition of the Willing: The Birth of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative --
Eradicating Poliomyelitis from Spaceship Earth --
A Hasty Decision and a Slow Start --
In the Doldrums --
Part III: The long endgame --
Rogue Vaccines and Rogue Viruses --
India: A Long Dirty War --
Two Crises and a Final Victory --
Pakistan: Where the Poliovirus Hid in Bin Laden's Shadow.

In 1988, the World Health Organization launched a twelve-year campaign to wipe out polio. Thirty years and several billion dollars over budget later, the campaign grinds on, vaccinating millions of children and hoping that each new year might see an end to the disease. But success remains elusive, against a surprisingly resilient virus, an unexpectedly weak vaccine and the vagaries of global politics, meeting with indifference from governments and populations alike. How did an innocuous campaign to rid the world of a crippling disease become a hostage of geopolitics? Why do parents refuse to vaccinate their children against polio? And why have poorly paid door-to-door healthworkers been assassinated? Thomas Abraham reports on the ground in search of answers"-- Publisher description