Rotary to donate $ 44.7 m in fight against polio

Friday, 24 October 2014 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Rotary will mark World Polio Day 2014 with $ 44.7 million in grants to fight polio in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. With the world 99% close to eliminating polio from the planet, the effort is receiving a $ 44.7 million boost from Rotary to support immunisation activities, surveillance and research spearheaded by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, which aims to end the disabling viral disease worldwide by 2018. About $ 18.5 million will go to the three remaining polio-endemic countries: Afghanistan ($ 7.4 million) Nigeria ($ 8.4 million) and Pakistan ($ 2.7 million). An endemic country is one where the wild poliovirus has never been stopped. Another $ 9.5 million is marked for previously polio-free countries currently reporting cases ‘imported’ from the endemic countries: Cameroon ($ 3.5 million), Ethiopia ($ 2 million) and Somalia ($ 4 million). And $ 10.4 million will go to polio-free countries that remain at risk of re-infection: Democratic Republic of Congo ($ 1.5 million), India ($ 4.9 million), Niger ($ 1 million), South Sudan ($ 2 million), and Sudan ($ 1 million). The remaining $ 6.3 million will go toward polio eradication research. Polio is set to become the second human disease to be eliminated from the world (smallpox was the first). To date, Rotary has helped 193 countries stop the transmission of polio through the mass immunisation of children. Rotary’s new funding commitment, announced in advance of the 24 October observance of World Polio Day 2014, targets countries where children remain at risk of contracting this incurable but totally vaccine-preventable disease.