Global leaders commit $2.6b to eradicate polio

GLOBAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST POLIO

World leaders have thrown more weight behind the campaign to end polio by confirming $2.6b (about sh9.9 trillion) funding toward the Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s (GPEI) 2022-2026 Strategy.

This timely commitment happened on Tuesday at the World Health Summit in Berlin, Germany.

The funds will bolster global efforts to eradicate polio, a disabling and life-threatening disease caused by the poliovirus.

The plan is to vaccinate as many as 370 million children annually over the next five years and continue disease surveillance across 50 countries.

Polio is transmitted from person to person, mainly through a faecal-oral route or, less frequently, through contaminated water or food.

“No place is safe until polio has been eradicated everywhere," said Svenja Schulze, Germany's federal minister for economic co-operation and development on the last day of the three-day World Health Summit in Germany's capital.

"As long as the virus still exists somewhere in the world, it can spread – including in our own country [Germany]," she warned in a statement released by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

"We now have a realistic chance to eradicate polio completely, and we want to jointly seize that chance."

German federal minister Svenja Schulze, seen here in the Bundestag on Sept 29 this year, says the world now has a realistic chance to eradicate polio completely

Schulze went on to pledge her nation's support in the global fight against polio.

Germany is providing €35m (about sh132b) for the cause and plans to inject €37m (about sh139b) next year.

Currently, the wild poliovirus is endemic in two countries: Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to the WHO.

But after just six cases were recorded in 2021, 29 cases have been registered so far in 2022. These included "a small number of new detections in southeast Africa linked to a strain originating in Pakistan".

A health worker administers polio vaccine drops to a child in Karachi, Pakistan on January 24, 2022

The WHO says that on top of that, outbreaks of vaccine-derived polioviruses (cVDPV), "continue to spread across parts of Africa, Asia and Europe, with new outbreaks detected in the US, Israel and the UK in recent months".

For clarity, cVDPV are variants of the poliovirus that can emerge in places where not enough people have been immunized.

In 2006, the WHO declared Uganda polio-free following the 'Kick polio out of Africa' campaign that resulted in zero indigenous polio cases.

But in August 2021, Uganda's health ministry confirmed a polio outbreak after results from tests conducted at the Uganda Virus Research Institute confirmed a circulating cVDPV2. The virus detected was found to have genetic linkage with a cVDPV2 strain reported in Sudan.

Five months later (in January 2022), the health ministry launched a mass vaccination campaign against polio targetting children under five. It was themed 'Keep Uganda Polio Free'.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

Meanwhile during the summit in Berlin, WHO director-general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was keen to sound a call of caution.

“The new detections of polio this year in previously polio-free countries are a stark reminder that if we do not deliver our goal of ending polio everywhere, it may resurge globally," he said.

The 57-year-old Ghebreyesus, who has been at the helm of UN's global public health agency since 2017, added that more work needs to be done to end polio "once and for all".

“We are grateful for donors’ new and continued support for eradication, but there is further work to do to fully fund the 2022-2026 Strategy."

"We must remember the significant challenges we have overcome to get this far against polio, stay the course and finish the job once and for all," said the WHO chief.

It is understood that if the five-year strategy is fully funded and eradication achieved, it is estimated that it would result in $33.1b (about 126.5 trillion) in health cost savings this century - compared to the price of controlling outbreaks. 

The other case for the continued support for GPEI is that it will enable delivery of additional health services and immunizations alongside polio vaccines to underserved communities.

'Safer, healthier future'

"Children deserve to live in a polio-free world, but as we have seen this year with painful clarity, until we reach every community and vaccinate every child, the threat of polio will persist," said UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell. 

She added that investing in immunization and health systems translates to investing in "a safer, healthier future for everyone, everywhere".

Meanwhile, on top of the funding for GPEI announced in Berlin, a group of more than 3,000 influential scientists, physicians, and public health experts from around the world released a declaration endorsing the 2022-2026 Strategy.

They urged donors to stay committed to eradication and ensure the initiative is fully funded.

Sensitizing Namibian health workers on acute flaccid paralysis and vaccine preventable diseases to support active polio cases search

The chief executive of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Mark Suzman, attended - and spoke - during the pledging moment on Tuesday.

“The question is not whether it is possible to eradicate polio - it is whether we can summon the will and the resources to finish the job," he said.

Suzman went on to thank the summit host Germany, Rotarians, donors, countries, scientists, and partners who "stood together today to show that we are united in this goal".

GAVI CEO Seth Berkley, pictured attending the 2016 Concordia Summit, says the latest pledges will support GPEI’s new strategy

Seth Berkley is the CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. 

He said the latest pledges will support GPEI’s new strategy, which "correctly focuses on mass vaccination campaigns, concerted efforts by partners to strengthen essential immunization and integration with other critical health interventions and a further roll out of next-generation oral polio vaccines". 

"These three measures combined are essential if we are to eradicate polio once and for all.”

Ian Riseley, the chair of Rotary Foundation, said that "while polio exists anywhere, it is a threat everywhere". 

Rotary International pledged $150m (about sh573b) to the anti-polio cause.

The GPEI is a public-private partnership led by national governments with six core partners – Rotary International, the WHO, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.