In a video interview, Micaela Martinez, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University, discusses how vector seasonality can potentially be used to eradicate polio worldwide. According to Martinez, polio outbreaks are more common in the summer, but often in countries where the wild poliovirus is still prevalent, such as Afghanistan and Pakistan, mass polio drives take place during the cooler months, since the oral polio vaccine needs to be kept cold. In the cooler months, when polio transmission is low, is the best time to conduct drives, since the virus is much more vulnerable then, according to Martinez, and that health officials should use a similar approach.

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