On this day, 31 years ago, on April 8, 1994 (February 28, 1994 in the lunar calendar), the World Health Organization declared that polio had been basically eradicated. On April 8, 1994, the United Nations World Health Organization announced that the number of countries without polio cases in the world in 1993 increased to 141. The total number of polio cases in the world in 1993 also dropped by half compared with 1992, that is, from nearly 16000 cases to more than 7800 cases. The World Health Organization issued an initiative at the World Health Assembly held in 1988 to strive for the complete elimination of polio within this century. There have been no further cases of polio in the Americas since September 1991. The World Health Organization says that in addition to the Americas, poliomyelitis has been largely eliminated or has very few levels in several other regions: Western Europe, Central Europe, North Africa, Southern and Eastern Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Western Pacific. There were 761 polio cases in the Western Pacific in 1993, a decrease of 60% from 1992. The World Health Organization points out that implementing nationwide vaccination in countries with large populations like China and India is decisive for the elimination of polio. Between 1989 and 1990, there were more than 5000 polio cases in China. Since then, China has strengthened preventive measures for children under the age of 4 in 25 provinces and autonomous regions across the country, reducing the number of polio patients to 344 in 1993.