Bill Gates is pledging $1.2 billion for a mission to eradicate polio through his philanthropic foundation. The billionaire said polio was nearly eradicated before new outbreaks were seeded in Africa.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced in Berlin its largest-ever pledge for the global eradication of polio. The funds will help to fill the shortfall, which along with the Ukraine war and flood in Pakistan, has frustrated efforts to fight the crippling disease.
The co-founder of Microsoft said in an interview that they were closest to polio eradication six months ago. The Seattle-based non-profit foundation with a $70 billion endowment has donated almost $ 5 billion for decades towards the cause.
In 2014 the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency after the wild polio wires spread internationally. The cases fell from 359 to 29 in 2022 globally. During the same period, a mutated strain from the oral polio vaccine jumped from 56 to 398 during the pandemic when there was a pause in disease surveillance and immunization for four months in 2020.
The five-year plan for polio eradication until 2026 requires $4.8 billion to reach out to 370 million children annually. Before the pledge Bill gates made last week, there was only $ 2.2. billion support left Norway and UK cut their contributions. According to Gates, he expects that co-host of the World Health Summit event in Germany will help to narrow the shortfall. The UK government spent 0.7% of its gross national income cut to 0.5% in 2021 in its polio program.
Polio Eradication
The human disease to have been eradicated is only smallpox. In 1988, world health leaders focused on polio and expected to eradicate it in 12 years, the same time taken to eradicate smallpox. However, the goal remained elusive.
Heroic efforts and $19 billion fund support helped cut polio by 99.9 % worldwide. Only Afghanistan and Pakistan remained the two countries where polio persisted. Polio spread back to southeastern Africa, with Mozambique reporting the first outbreak in 30 years. This led to three vaccination programs targeting 4.5 million children carried out nationally.
Bill Gates focuses on Pakistan, with only one strain circulating in Waziristan, close to the Afghanistan border. The recent floods displaced millions of people and fanned the spread of poliovirus.
Most global polio cases are caused by a derivative of the oral vaccine for type -2 polio. The Gates Foundation has financed the development of a newer version that cannot be reverted to its earlier pathogenic form. According to WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean region director Hamid Jafri, WHO authorized the use of novel vaccines two years ago, and 500 million doses have been administered in 25 countries.
