Rotary contributes to fight against polio

As health partners mark World Polio Day on October 24, the Rotary Club of Grahamstown Sunset’s Debbie Smuts talks about the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) and Rotary International’s role in helping achieve polio-free areas across the world.

The GPEI is a public-private partnership led by national governments with the World Health Organisation (WHO), Rotary International, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Unicef, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

This coalition unites health workers, governments, donors and global leaders behind the vision of a world where children are safe from the threat of polio.

The world is close to eradicating polio, which would mean a world in which every child would be safe from the paralysis caused by the virus.

In 1988, polio paralysed 350,000 children annually across 125 countries.

The GPEI has successfully eliminated wild polio from five of the six WHO regions, meaning more than 90% of the world’s population live in wild polio-free areas.

The WHO African region was the most recent to be certified wild polio-free in 2020.

Endemic wild polio has been restricted to just Pakistan and Afghanistan.

However, confirmation of wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) in February 2022 in Malawi and in March 2022 in Mozambique, linked to WPV1 from Pakistan, underscores the international risk associated with polio and the need to eradicate it.

Despite significant progress, persistent challenges including low-quality immunisation campaigns, access and insecurity issues, and vaccine hesitancy remain.

The GPEI is implementing its new Strategy 2022-2026, which aims to generate increased government accountability and country ownership to end all forms of polio.

Further, it continues the programme’s strong commitment to integrating polio activities with other health activities and partnering with high-risk communities to increase vaccine uptake. Since 1988, GPEI has reduced polio cases by 99.9%.

Around 20 million people are walking today who would have otherwise been paralysed by polio. More than 150 laboratories support disease surveillance and response in many low-income countries.

Thanks to current efforts, 3billion children have been immunised against polio.

The Rotary Club of Grahamstown Sunset is committed to the GPEI, and makes an annual donation to the Rotary Foundation in support of the programme.