LONDON: A major fundraising event to bolster the global campaign to eradicate polio will take place at a pivotal time in regional efforts to stop the disease, health officials said on Thursday.
The UAE is hosting a “pledging moment” next week to build investment in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.
The campaign has helped wipe out the disease across most of the world, but wild polio remains endemic in just two countries: Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Doctors overseeing vaccination efforts believe the coming months could see a major leap toward eradicating polio in both countries.
Dr. Hanan Balkhy, the World Health Organization’s regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, said the fundraising event in Abu Dhabi comes at “exactly the right time to support countries through critical, low transmission seasons.”
The spread of the disease slows during winter when vaccination campaigns can be most effective.
Wild polio was close to being eradicated in 2022, but case numbers in Pakistan and Afghanistan began to rise again in 2023 and spiked the following year.
Speaking ahead of the fundraiser, Balkhy, a Saudi physician who was appointed to her WHO role last year, said that transmission is declining again in both countries and that the winter months offered a perfect opportunity to finally break its grip.
Dr. Hanan Balkhy, the World Health Organization’s regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, said there is now a pivotal epidemiological window to end polio in Pakistan and Afghanistan. (AN Photo)
“We now enter a pivotal epidemiological window, where the upcoming low transmission season offers the strongest opportunity since 2022 to interrupt wild polio, but only if we focus relentlessly on the areas where the virus persists,” she said.
Asked when the disease would finally be eradicated, she said that the ambition is “this season.”
“We're so, so close,” she said. “We need to finish this today. We need to finish it this low season.”
Since the initiative began in 1988, dramatic progress has been made against polio through extensive vaccination campaigns.
Thirty years ago, the virus paralyzed 1,000 children a day across 125 countries. In 2021, just six cases were reported worldwide, but the final hurdle toward eradication has proved particularly difficult.
A further challenge has been the vaccine-derived form of the virus, which affects parts of Africa and Yemen. An outbreak in Gaza last year was brought under control by a major UAE-funded immunization drive.
The pledging event on Monday comes as the GPEI faces a 30 percent budget cut for 2026 and a $1.7 billion funding gap up to 2029. The shortfalls are largely down to a major reduction in foreign aid from the US and some European countries.
Gulf countries have continued their strong support for the GPEI, a coalition that includes WHO, the Gates Foundation, and UNICEF.
Balkhy said Saudi Arabia’s commitment of $500 million to the initiative last year represented a “transformative investment.”
The UAE is also a major supporter, committing more than $380 million to eradicating the disease since 2011.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar are all key backers of the Polio Legacy Challenge, which aims to help eradicate the disease in Afghanistan by strengthening health systems and improving vaccination campaigns.
The fundraising conference on Monday will be the third hosted by Abu Dhabi with pledges for the initiative.
Tala Al-Ramahi from the Mohamed Bin Zayed Foundation for Humanity, which is organizing the event, said conferences in 2013 and 2016 pulled in $6.6 billion in global commitments.
She said this year's event could not come at a more critical time.
“We have never been closer to eradication, but global funding constraints are threatening that progress. Without full-funded global eradication efforts, surveillance, vaccination, and outbreak response, the backbone of ending polio will slow at the exact moment the virus is at its weakest.”
Al-Ramahi said that if momentum is lost, a resurgent polio virus could paralyze up to 200,000 children a year.
Steven Lauwerier, UNICEF’s director for polio eradication, said the Abu Dhabi event will be an opportunity to renew both financial and political commitments to polio eradication.
“With a fully funded program, we vaccinate about 400 million children a year,” he said. “This is one of the most successful programs globally in partnerships that are reaching and having impact every day for thousands and thousands of children.”
