The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged $1.2 billion to help eradicate polio.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledged to invest $1.2 billion to support efforts to eradicate all forms of poliomyelitis globally.

The organization made the announcement from Berlin, where this Sunday the World Health Summit and before the meeting of the Global Initiative for the Eradication of Polio (IGEP) is held next Tuesday.

These funds will serve to apply the IGEP 2022-2026 Strategy that seeks to eradicate outbreaks of the disease in the two countries where it is still endemic, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and prevent outbreaks of virus variants. The Bill Gates Foundation has already contributed more than 5,000 million in total to the IGEP.

“Polio eradication is possible, but it is still a threat. By collaborating, the world can put an end to this disease,” said Bill Gates. “I want to thank Germany for co-hosting this week’s events and for their continued support of polio eradication. I call on other donors to support the eradication strategy so that no one is paralyzed by polio again,” he added.

The IGEP meeting is held next Tuesday and it is expected that there will be more funding commitments from donors and leaders from various countries to achieve the 4.8 billion dollars budgeted in the organization’s 2022-2026 Strategy.

The plan calls for vaccinating 370 million children a year and providing other basic health servicesas well as measures to support local authorities, respond to possible outbreaks or help develop the new generation of polio vaccines.

IGEP is estimated to have saved more than 20 million children from this paralyzing disease and death. This year and for the first time in a long time, cases have been registered in Africa and there are fears for children who have not received the vaccine due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Poliomyelitis is a highly contagious disease that is caused by a virus. The infection invades the nervous system and can cause paralysis within hours.. The world has agreed strategy to eradicate the disease, but this year polio cases have already been reported in African countries, such as Mozambique and Malawi. There were also 14 cases in Pakistan, one case of a child in Israel and one case of a 20-year-old in the United States. In addition, poliovirus has been detected in sewage from New York and London.

The serious thing is that in 1 in 200 cases the virus destroys parts of the nervous system, causing permanent paralysis in the legs or arms. Although very rare, the virus can attack the parts of the brain that help with breathing, which can cause death.

In America there is a risk of reintroduction of the polio virus. As reported by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), In 33 of the 42 countries that make up the region, immunization coverage with the third dose of poliomyelitis is below 95% of the population. Among them are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, Paraguay, Colombia, Haiti and Peru. These inadequate levels of immunization put these countries at greater risk of reintroduction of the polio virus.

(With information from Europe Press)

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