Stop! The Polio Vaccination Cessation Game

Should polio be eradicated worldwide, countries must decide whether to continue to vaccinate with the live-attenuated vaccine, to continue to vaccinate with the alternative, killed vaccine, or to cease vaccinating. To reap a dividend from polio eradication, countries must choose the last option, but vaccination cessation entails interdependent risks as well as rewards. This article models the polio vaccination cessation game, deriving the conditions that support vaccination cessation as an equilibrium, describing the policies and institutions needed to steer countries toward this equilibrium, and presenting crude quantitative estimates of the gains to supporting this equilibrium. Copyright , Oxford University Press.