HEALTH: Shortfall in Funds for Eradicating Polio in 2000

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Dec 3 1999 (IPS) - The international effort to eradicate poliomyelitis by late 2000 could fall short due to a lack of funds for acquiring the vaccines still needed by a handful of countries in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

In an urgent call to donor countries, the directors of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Gro Harlem Brundtland, and United Nations children’s fund (UNICEF), Carol Bellamy, called for additional funds for the purchase of some 700 million doses.

Brundtland and Bellamy, with the backing of former Rotary International director Carl-Wilhelm Stenhammar, issued their call on Friday, World Disability Day.

The shortage of vaccines is due to the speed with which some countries have carried out plans for eradicating the disease, they said. In massive campaigns last year, 450 million children were vaccinated. India doubled its efforts, immunising more than 130 million children under five.

“On this World Disability Day we urge donors to invest in the Polio Eradication Initiative which will bring annual savings of 1.5 billion dollars to tackle other disabilities,” said Brundtland.

The international community has already saved some two billion dollars a year in immunisation costs due to eradication of smallpox, a victory for preventive medicine which the offensive against polio is seeking to emulate.

The last-ditch efforts to eliminate polio will focus on some 50 countries, although 10 countries account for the lion’s share of cases that have survived the international campaign against the disease.

WHO divides them into “countries at war” like Afghanistan, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia and Sudan, and “reservoirs where transmission is particularly intense,” such as Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria and Pakistan.

Brundtland said “we have a window of opportunity to eradicate polio forever. We are seizing that opportunity and accelerating the campaign in the next 12 months, to deliver a polio-free world to the children of the 21st century.”

A WHO report cited some 5,000 new cases of polio reported worldwide in 1998. But the global health institution estimated the real total at five or ten times the number of reported cases in some countries.

Polio was endemic in the five continents until 1988, but has now been relegated to a handful of countries in south Asia and sub- Saharan Africa. In 10 years, the number of reported cases was slashed 85 percent.

The American continent was declared polio-free in 1994. The illness then disappeared from the western Pacific, including China, and from Europe, with the exception of Turkey.

The aim of the international campaign is to totally eradicate polio by the end of next year, and obtain official certification by 2005.

Bellamy defined the effort as “the last big push against polio. We are on the verge of consigning to history a disease which has terrified communities and devastated countless lives.”

“Donors have an opportunity now, at modest cost, to honour our global commitment and complete one of the major medical miracles of our time – the eradication of a terrible disabling disease,” she added.

Participating in the campaign are the US Centres for Disease Prevention and Control, the UN Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank and the governments of Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan and the United States.