The Global Polio Eradication Initiative has announced a commitment of $100 million over five years from the Lawrence Ellison Medical Foundation in support of a $5.5 billion plan to eradicate polio completely by 2018.
The commitment, which includes roughly $20 million that was distributed in 2013, will support a global public-private immunization plan that was announced last April at the Global Vaccine Summit in Abu Dhabi. Developed in consultation with a range of stakeholders, the plan addresses the operational challenges of vaccinating children, including those living in densely populated urban areas and in regions where security is an issue. At the summit, more than thirty-five government and private donors pledged $4 billion in support of the initiative, including $1.8 billion from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
According to GPEI, there are only three polio-endemic countries left in the world — Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria. In 2013, new cases of polio in Afghanistan and Nigeria were reduced by 65 percent and 57 percent on a year-over-year basis. And in January, after three years during which no new wild poliovirus cases were reported, India, which was once thought to be the last country that would eradicate polio, was declared to be polio-free. Recent outbreaks of the virus in Syria and the Horn of Africa, however, demonstrate that the disease remains a threat.
"The global polio eradication effort has done a tremendous job of getting us to the last mile," said Gates Foundation co-chair Bill Gates. "We knew this last push would be the hardest and the lack of resources can't be what stands in the way of delivering on the promise of a world without polio. Larry Ellison's generous donation will help to ensure that all children are protected from this and other vaccine-preventable diseases."
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