As a child growing up in Ireland in the 1980s, I had never seen polio or known a polio-survivor, or if I had, I hadn’t recognised it at the time because the disease was so rare in our part of the world.

Now - through my six month placement in Ethiopia - my understanding of the polio virus and the significance of the quest for global eradication has shifted significantly.

Before I came to Ethiopia, polio to me was a photograph of a 1950s hospital ward filled with children lying motionless in large, cold iron-lungs. I thought it was a sad memory for a generation gone by. I had no idea how many men and women my own age and younger were living in parts of Africa and south Asia with irreversible limb damage. With joints and muscles so twisted and depleted they were beyond use.

In a country like Ethiopia, where more than 85% of the population are employed in agriculture, to be without the use of a limb is devastating. Many survivors are marginalised.

The ravages of the virus can be seen in towns and villages across the country, especially in the capital city of Addis Ababa. In Addis, I meet such survivors daily, in doorways and on street-corners, some with crutches, some without. For me, this is my new image of polio. Sadly for many people, it is a way of life.

The great news is that global eradication of polio is now a realistic goal. Ethiopia has a national vaccination programme and no new cases have been reported since 2006. But in Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan, the poliovirus remains endemic and needs to be addressed, while existing vaccination programmes in countries where the disease has been eradicated must be vigilantly maintained and monitored.

To make global eradication a reality, large scale immunisation campaigns are required in every country, and they should reach each and every child, including those isolated by geography, poverty and security.

Niamh is currently spending six months as part of the GSK Pulse Volunteer Partnership, working for Millennium Villages Ethiopia.

Global eradication of polio – our involvement

In support of the effort to eradicate polio, which is led by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), we have been providing polio vaccines worldwide for over 50 years. To the end of 2011, we had distributed over 14.5 billion doses of polio vaccine, and over the next five years we have committed to meet around 30% of GPEI's polio vaccine requirements - approximately 1.5 billion doses - which will be procured through UNICEF. We have also invested around £250 million in a new vaccine manufacturing facility for developed and developing world countries.

The GPEI is a public-private partnership led by national governments and spearheaded by the World Health Organization. It is assisted in its work against polio by Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).