Polio ... Complete Eradication In sight

Did you know that we stand on the very brink of eradicating polio completely - as an infectious disease??From being endemic all over the world just a few decades ago, it has been pushed back and back.?In 2020 Nigeria was certified polio-free, meaning Africa no longer has any polio.?The virus is only just clinging on in there in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This week I posted the following letter to Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who has the power to fund the (very cheap, considering) remaining work that would be the UK’s contribution to the final eradication of polio as an infectious disease.?You may wish to write to Liz Truss too, in which case please feel free to plagiarise :-)

(Campaign by RESULTS UK : https://www.results.org.uk/news/finishing-fight-end-polio )

___________________________

Rt. Hon. Liz Truss MP,?

Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office,?

King Charles Street,?

London?

SW1A 2AH.?

Dear Liz Truss,

Here is a heart-warming story for our Covid-ravaged times.?Polio also is a life-threatening disease caused by a very contagious virus.?It can lead to permanent disability or death.?One hundred years ago polio was one of the most feared diseases, even in Britain.?Vaccines brought polio under control.?Today the disease only continues to infect people in two countries of the whole world: Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Imagine being the Foreign Secretary who eradicated polio for good.?This could be you!?It’s perfectly possible on your watch.?Indeed it would be astonishingly cheap and easy.?The financial framework and delivery mechanism are already in place. ?

Alok Sharma set up the financial framework in 2019 when he was Secretary of State for International Development.?He specified ￡100 million in each of the years 2020 through 2023.?Of the Foreign Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) budget this is a tiny part.?Yet it would help secure vaccinations for more than 750 children EACH MINUTE!?It would help support twenty million health workers and volunteers ... and could eradicate polio for ever.

And to deliver this miracle we have the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI).?It is a powerful international public-private partnership.?In the year the GPEI began - 1988 - polio paralysed more than 1,000 children worldwide every day. Since then, the GPEI has coordinated the work of more than 200 countries and immunised more than 2.5 billion children against polio - preventing an estimated 19 million polio cases.?Polio has been driven out of every country in the world except Afghanistan and Pakistan.?Despite Covid-19, GPEI has performed with characteristic brilliance, and re-established polio vaccination programmes, even in the most remote and difficult regions.

We in the UK contributed ￡100 million to the polio eradication programme in 2020, but last year, with Covid-19 and the aid cuts, our contribution was missed.?Therefore I ask that this year we contribute ￡200 million, and next year ￡100 million.?By doing so we stand an excellent chance of eradicating polio completely.?Astonishing!?Let’s do it.