Failed States and The Possible Resurgence of Polio

The Earth Policy Institute has raised the possibility (here) that polio, essentially eradicated in 2000, might spread again from failed states to the rest of the world. From the report:

Once endemic to 125 countries, today polio transmission continues uninterrupted in only 4 countries: Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan; all but India are considered among the world’s top failing states.

Failing states, those that lose control of part or all of their territory and can no longer ensure their people’s security, can pose a threat to international health. They may lack a health care system that is sophisticated enough to participate in the international network that controls the spread of infectious diseases, as illustrated by recent missed opportunities to eradicate polio.

The Earth Policy Institute also contrasted polio to smallpox which the Institute believes has been effectively eradicated. Why smallpox and polio should behave differently in failed states, the article does not say. In a prior post (here), one of my models suggests that smallpox (a disease for which no effective treatment was ever developed) might be linked to trends in commodity markets and might have a resurgence if commodity markets begin malfunctioning.

My models do not show a similar dynamic for polio. The attractor forecast (above, the black line is the actual number of polio cases while the red line is the attractor value and the others are the 98% prediction intervals for the attractor) suggests that, with very high probability, polio was eradicated in 2010.