With a bold new plan for massive campaigns to immunize 250 million children against polio, the six remaining polio-endemic countries pledged at a United Nations-hosted meeting Thursday to relegate to the history books within 12 months a disease that once paralyzed hundreds of thousands of children worldwide each year.
But implementing the plans outlined by the Ministers of Health of Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Niger, Nigeria and Pakistan requires continued generous support of public and private donors, and an additional 150 million dollars is urgently needed to fill the remaining funding gap for activities during 2004 and 2005.
After an international investment of 3 billion (milliarder) dollars over 15 years, and the successful engagement of over 200 countries and 20 million volunteers, polio could be the first disease of the 21st century to be eradicated, according to a joint news release issued at the end of the meeting co-hosted in Geneva by the UN Childrens Fund (UNICEF) and the UN World Health Organization (WHO).
The ministers noted that success or failure of the worlds largest public health initiative – spearheaded by national governments, WHO, UNICEF, Rotary International and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – now rests with the governments of the six endemic countries.
Transmission is at its lowest level ever in India, Pakistan and Egypt, providing a rare opportunity to halt the spread of the virus, according to the release issued by WHO, UNICEF, Rotary International and the CDC.
But Nigeria currently poses the greatest risk to global eradication, since immunization was halted in Kano state, the last major polio reservoir in Africa, because of unfounded rumours that the vaccine was unsafe.
Polio has thus crept back across Nigeria and spread into previously polio-free Cameroon and Chad, and through Niger into Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Togo, putting 15 million children at risk and necessitating a massive immunization campaign across west and central Africa.
– Nigeria is determined to break the chains of polio transmission for the sake of our children, our neighbours children, and the children of the world, Nigerian Minister of Health Eyitayo Lambo said, outlining steps to “dramatically” improve polio campaigns in the first half of 2004.
In 2003, funding shortfalls required most polio-free countries to stop their immunization campaigns, leaving millions of children more vulnerable to infection from endemic States.
Kilde: FNs Nyhedstjeneste
