Global Health Community Commits Over $630m for Polio Eradication

Rotary International, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the British and German governments last week committed more than $630 million in new funds to fight polio, a crippling and sometimes fatal disease that still paralyzes children in parts of Africa and Asia and threatens children everywhere. 
The announcements came during the Rotary International Assembly, the humanitarian service organization’s annual leadership conference.
In addition to pledging needed funds, leaders urged additional donors and leaders of countries where polio still exists to join them in aggressive push for eradication.
The Gates Foundation is awarding a $255 million challenge grant to Rotary, which Rotary will match with $100 million raised by its members over the next three years.  At the same time, the United Kingdom is giving an additional $150 million (£100 million) and Germany is giving an additional $130 million (€ 100 million), both to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI). Contributions from the U.K. and Germany over the next five years will not count toward Rotary’s match of the Gates Foundation challenge grant.
As a spearheading partner in the initiative, Rotary’s chief role is fundraising, advocacy and mobilizing volunteers. “Rotarians, government leaders and health professionals have made a phenomenal commitment so polio afflicts only a small number of the world’s children,” said Bill Gates, co-chair of the Gates Foundation.
“However, complete elimination of the polio virus is difficult and will continue to be difficult for a number of years. Rotary in particular has inspired my own personal commitment to get deeply involved in achieving eradication.”
In accepting the Gates challenge, Jonathan Majiyagbe, Rotary Foundation chair said the funding partnership will inspire other polio eradication allies, both current and new, to ramp up their support.
“With the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we are on the brink of eradicating one of the most feared diseases in the world,” Majiyagbe said. “This shared commitment of Rotary and the Gates Foundation should encourage governments and nongovernmental organizations to ensure that resources and the will of the world are available to end polio once and for all.”
UK International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander said: “This £100 million pledge by the UK Government, combined with the money from our other partners, is a massive boost in the battle to rid the world of the scourge of polio. We have already significantly increased the number of vaccinations for those people most at risk, and there has been real progress in reducing the number of new infections. Now is the time to make the final push to eradicate polio. This investment will ensure future generations in the developing world will no longer have their lives blighted by this crippling disease.”
Polio has been completely eliminated in the Americas, the Western Pacific and Europe, but the wild polio virus persists in Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan, and imported cases from these countries threaten other developing nations. It is in these four countries that the most serious challenges exist, including vaccine effectiveness (India), low vaccination coverage rates (Nigeria), and access problems due to conflict (Afghanistan and Pakistan).
Launched in 1988, the GPEI spearheaded by Rotary, the World Health Organization, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and UNICEF; has reduced the number of polio cases by 99 percent over the past two decades, from more than 350,000 cases in 1988 to an estimated 1,600 in 2008.