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What you should know about this indicator

  • Polio vaccines are given either as an (OPV), using a weakened live virus, or as an (IPV), using a killed virus given by injection.
  • The oral polio vaccine protects against poliovirus and interrupts its transmission, but it carries a very small risk of vaccine-associated paralytic polio, occurring in about 1 per 2–3 million vaccine doses.
  • The inactivated polio vaccine protects against all types of poliovirus (types 1, 2, and 3) and does not carry the risk of vaccine-associated paralytic polio associated with OPV.
  • Where the risk of polio is high, the OPV is often given alongside the IPV, since it provides additional protection against poliovirus transmission. Where the risk of polio is low, countries only recommend the IPV, as the risk of vaccine-associated paralytic polio from OPV outweighs the benefits of immunity.
  • Many countries have moved from OPV-only schedules to using IPV alongside or instead of OPV, following the global phased withdrawal of oral polio vaccines as part of the polio eradication endgame.
  • Data is based on the most recent national immunization schedule reported by each country through the WHO/UNICEF Joint Reporting Form on Immunization.
Polio vaccine schedule
WHO
Type of polio vaccines used in the national immunization schedule in each country: only inactivated poliovirus vaccines (IPV), oral poliovirus vaccines (OPV), or both.
Source
World Health Organization (2026) – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
October 7, 2026
Next expected update
October 2027
Date range
2019–2025

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

World Health Organization – Vaccination schedule for Poliomyelitis

The vaccine scheduler table summarizes the current vaccination schedule for young children, adolescents, and adults for Poliomyelitis. The data is updated regularly with the most recent official country reporting collected through the WHO/UNICEF joint reporting process.

Retrieved on
October 7, 2026
Retrieved from
https://immunizationdata.who.int/global/wiise-detail-page/vaccination-schedule-for-poliomyelitis?ISO_3_CODE=&TARGETPOP_GENERAL=
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Vaccination schedule for Poliomyelitis, World Health Organization (2026)

The vaccine scheduler table summarizes the current vaccination schedule for young children, adolescents, and adults for Poliomyelitis. The data is updated regularly with the most recent official country reporting collected through the WHO/UNICEF joint reporting process.

Retrieved on
October 7, 2026
Retrieved from
https://immunizationdata.who.int/global/wiise-detail-page/vaccination-schedule-for-poliomyelitis?ISO_3_CODE=&TARGETPOP_GENERAL=
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Vaccination schedule for Poliomyelitis, World Health Organization (2026)

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

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Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
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Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Polio vaccine schedule”, part of the following publication: Fiona Spooner, Saloni Dattani, Samantha Vanderslott, and Max Roser (2022) - “Vaccination”. Data adapted from World Health Organization. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20261009-115530/grapher/polio-vaccine-schedule.html [online resource] (archived on October 9, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

World Health Organization (2026) – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

World Health Organization (2026) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Polio vaccine schedule – WHO” [dataset]. World Health Organization, “Vaccination schedule for Poliomyelitis” [original data]. Retrieved October 9, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20261009-115530/grapher/polio-vaccine-schedule.html (archived on October 9, 2026).

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