The Hindu : National : $630 million more pledged in global anti-polio efforts

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$630 million more pledged in global anti-polio efforts

Aarti Dhar

Gates Foundation awards $ 255-million grant to Rotary

NEW DELHI: Rotary International, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the British and German governments on Wednesday committed more than $630 million in new funds to fight polio, which still paralyses children in parts of Africa and Asia and threatens children everywhere.

The Gates Foundation is awarding a $ 255-million challenge grant to Rotary, which will match this with $100 million to be raised by its members over the next three years.

The United Kingdom is giving an additional $150 million (£100 million) and Germany 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 funds matching the Gates Foundation challenge grant.

Rotary conference

As a spearheading partner in the GPEI, Rotary’s chief role is fundraising, advocacy and mobilising volunteers.

The announcements came during the Rotary International Assembly, the humanitarian service organisation’s annual leadership conference. The polio eradication initiative faces an ongoing funding shortfall.

With these new investments, along with contributions received from Canada, Russia, the United States and other donors, the shortfall for 2009-2010 is $ 340 million. The new funding from Germany will further reduce the gap.

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.

Big drop in cases

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 Organisation, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the United Nations Children’s Fund — has reduced the number of polio cases from more than 3,50,000 cases in 1988 to an estimated 1,600 in 2008.

Immunisation Days

The GPEI partners will use the new funds to support organising National Immunisation Days, when countries aim to immunise every child under five with oral polio vaccine, supplemental activities focussed on providing extra vaccinations to children in high-risk areas, research into new vaccines and ways to ensure that they are available to vulnerable children and surveillance activities to detect cases of polio so that progress can be measured and outbreaks contained.

This is the second challenge grant for polio eradication the Gates Foundation has given to Rotary.

The first came in November 2007, when Rotary agreed to match a $100-million grant dollar-for-dollar.

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