The World Health Organization and UNICEF cohosted a meeting with Rotary International and other stakeholders in Geneva on 18 June to launch the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) Strategic Plan 2010-12.
The new plan comes at a critical time for the GPEI. Key endemic countries are witnessing historic gains against the disease. Nowhere is progress more evident than in Nigeria, which has reported just three cases in 2010 as of 6 July compared with 333 cases for the same period in 2009. India has reported 22 cases compared with 107 cases.
In May, the World Health Assembly welcomed the new plan while expressing deep concern about the substantial funding gap over the next three years. The shortfall is a serious risk to ending polio and highlights the need for Rotary to reach its goal of raising US$200 million.
An essential element of the plan is the bivalent oral polio vaccine, which is being used effectively against wild poliovirus types 1 and 3 in all four endemic countries: Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan (Type 2 poliovirus has been eradicated).
The plan also focuses on known polio migration routes, which have made outbreaks of the disease largely predictable. Aggressive synchronized immunization campaigns are now being used to help prevent and stop outbreaks.
The partners of the GPEI are exploring every option to secure fresh funding and are managing existing cash flow to limit any threat to the eradication effort. The risk of not stopping polio in endemic countries was made clear when a large outbreak occurred in Tajikistan, caused by poliovirus that had spread from India in early 2010. The outbreak has paralyzed 334 children as of 29 June. Tajikistan had been polio-free since 1997.
«The complete eradication of polio is an absolute goal, and it requires absolute commitment from us all», says UNICEF Executive Director Tony Lake.
«Rotary believes the new strategic plan provides the blueprint to achieving the goal of polio eradication», says Rotary Foundation Trustee Chair Carl-Wilhelm Stenhammar.
For more information:
* Learn more about the GPEI strategic plan
* Learn more about Rotary's US$200 Million Challenge
* Watch a video about what it takes to eradicate polio
Henrique Pinto
July 2010
PHOTOS: Carl-Wilhelm Stenhammar, current TRF Chairman, together with Henrique Pinto, good friends since a long time, in Lisbon; Hillary Clinton, USA Secretary of State, had an important role in Nigeria, to change the government working model towards polio eradication in that endemic country; Anthony Lake, current UNICEF executive director; Antonio Guterres (with his lovely wife Catarina Vaz Pinto), current UN responsible for Refugies, has a hard work on hunger ways which spread Polio; Margaret Chan, current WHO secretary general; Ray Klingensmith, current Rotary International President, will be in Abuja, Nigeria, next 20 to 25 September, with Carl-wilhelm Stenhammer, in the Polio Summit.
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