BERLIN: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on Sunday pledged to invest $1.2 billion toward wiping out polio as health experts from around the world gathered for a summit in Berlin.
“Polio eradication is within reach. But as far as we have come, the disease remains a threat,” Bill Gates, co-chair of the foundation, said in a statement.
The sum will be donated to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), a public-private partnership led by national governments that aims to end the disease by 2026.
Polio is a highly contagious illness caused by a virus that enters the central nervous system and damages cells in the spinal cord and brain.
The disease can be fatal, and those who survive are often left paralyzed or with atrophied and twisted limbs.
Polio most often affects children under the age of five but can hit anyone who is not vaccinated.
Since its launch in 1988, the GPEI has helped reduce polio cases by more than 99 percent worldwide and prevented more than 20 million cases of paralysis, the foundation said in a statement.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries where the wild poliovirus remains endemic, though Malawi and Mozambique also detected imported wild polio cases in 2022.
“Despite this historic progress, interruptions in routine immunization, vaccine misinformation, political unrest, and the tragic floods in Pakistan in 2022 have underscored the urgent need to finish the job against polio,” the foundation said.
Another concern is that “countries that had previously eliminated all forms of poliovirus have recently reported new detections of the virus,” such as Britain and the US, it said.
Partners in the GPEI include the World Health Organization (WHO), Rotary International and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Gates Foundation pledges $1.2 billion to eradicate polio as floods in Pakistan impede immunization
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Gates Foundation pledges $1.2 billion to eradicate polio as floods in Pakistan impede immunization
- The foundation says the situation in Pakistan has underscored the urgent need to finish the job against polio
- Countries that had previously eliminated all forms of poliovirus have recently reported new detections of the virus
Tens of thousands flee northwest Pakistan over fears of military operation
- More than 70,000 people, mostly women and children, have fled remote Tirah region bordering Afghanistan
- Government says no military operation underway or planned in Tirah, a town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province
BARA, Pakistan: More than 70,000 people, mostly women and children, have fled a remote region in northwestern Pakistan bordering Afghanistan over uncertainty of a military operation against the Pakistani Taliban, residents and officials said Tuesday.
Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif has denied the claim by residents and provincial authorities. He said no military operation was underway or planned in Tirah, a town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Speaking at a news conference in Islamabad, he said harsh weather, rather than military action, was driving the migration. His comments came weeks after residents started fleeing Tirah over fears of a possible army operation.
The exodus began a month after mosque loudspeakers urged residents to leave Tirah by Jan. 23 to avoid potential fighting. Last August, Pakistan launched a military operation against Pakistani Taliban in the Bajau r district in the northwest, displacing hundreds of thousands of people.
Shafi Jan, a spokesman for the provincial government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, posted on X that he held the federal government responsible for the ordeal of the displaced people, saying authorities in Islamabad were retracting their earlier position about the military operation.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Suhail Afridi, whose party is led by imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan, has criticized the military and said his government will not allow troops to launch a full-scale operation in Tirah.
The military says it will continue intelligence-based operations against Pakistani Taliban, who are known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. Though a separate group, it has been emboldened since the Afghan
Taliban returned to power in 2021. Authorities say many TTP leaders and fighters have found sanctuary in Afghanistan and that hundreds of them have crossed into Tirah, often using residents as human shields when militant hideouts are raided.
Caught in the middle are the residents of Tirah, who continued arriving in Bara.
So far, local authorities have registered roughly 10,000 families — about 70,000 people — from Tirah, which has a population of around 150,000, said Talha Rafiq Alam, a local government administrator overseeing the relief effort. He said the registration deadline, originally set for Jan. 23, has been extended to Feb. 5.
He said the displaced would be able to return once the law-and-order situation improves.
Among those arriving in Bara and nearby towns was 35-year-old Zar Badshah, who said he left with his wife and four children after the authorities ordered an evacuation. He said mortar shells had exploded in villages in recent weeks, killing a woman and wounding four children in his village. “Community elders told us to leave. They instructed us to evacuate to safer places,” he said.
At a government school in Bara, hundreds of displaced lined up outside registration centers, waiting to be enrolled to receive government assistance. Many complained the process was slow.
Narendra Singh, 27, said members of the minority Sikh community also fled Tirah after food shortages worsened, exacerbated by heavy snowfall and uncertain security.
“There was a severe shortage of food items in Tirah, and that forced us to leave,” he said.
Tirah gained national attention in September, after an explosion at a compound allegedly used to store bomb-making materials killed at least 24 people. Authorities said most of the dead were militants linked to the TTP, though local leaders disputed that account, saying civilians, including women and children, were among the dead.
