A major milestone has been reached in the effort to eradicate polio world-wide.
On 25 August 2020 the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that transmission of the wild poliovirus has officially been stopped in all 47 countries of its African region.
This comes after decades of hard won gains in the region by Rotary and its partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) — WHO, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Gavi, the vaccine alliance. It's an historic and vital step toward global eradication of polio, which is Rotary’s top priority.
The Rotary Club of Timaru has been contributing to this project over several years both with funds donated personally by Club members, and with the proceeds of the Club's community fundraising activities. Everyone who supports Rotary's projects can rightly feel a sense of pride in this achievement.
The last cases of polio caused by the wild virus in the African region were recorded in Nigeria’s northern state of Borno in August 2016 after two years with no cases. Conflict, along with challenges in reaching mobile populations, had hampered efforts to immunize children there.
Not detecting any wild poliovirus in Africa is in stark contrast to the situation in 1996 when 75,000 children there were paralyzed by the disease. That year, at a meeting of the Organization of African Unity in Cameroon, African heads of state committed to eradicating the disease from the continent.
To bolster the effort, also in 1996, Rotary, its GPEI partners, and South African President Nelson Mandela launched the Kick Polio Out of Africa campaign. Using soccer matches and celebrity endorsements, the campaign raised awareness of polio and helped more than 30 African countries to hold their first National Immunization Days. Mandela’s call to action helped mobilize leaders across the continent to increase their efforts to reach every child with polio vaccine.
Rotary members world-wide have contributed nearly $890 million toward polio eradication efforts in the African region. The funds have allowed Rotary to issue PolioPlus grants to fund polio surveillance, transportation, awareness campaigns, and National Immunization Days.
Now that the African region is free of wild poliovirus, five of WHO’s six regions, representing more than 90 percent of the world’s population, are now free of the disease.
The GPEI’s challenge now is to eradicate wild poliovirus in the two countries where the disease has never been stopped: Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Additionally, routine immunization in Africa must also be strengthened to keep the wild poliovirus from returning and to protect children against circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus, which is rare but continues to infect people in parts of the African region.
Visit endpolio.org to learn more and donate to support this worthy project.