LONDON: Local Afghan Taliban leaders are hindering global efforts to end polio, but Afghanistan and Pakistan must continue their fight to “get to zero” cases, the philanthropist Bill Gates said on Monday.
Gates was optimistic about the global plan to eradicate the paralysing viral disease, but said Afghanistan’s conflict and power struggles hamper progress.
“The big issue there is always with the Taliban,” said Gates,
whose multi-billion dollar philanthropic Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is one of the biggest funders of the polio eradication campaign.
Polio is a virus that spreads in areas with poor sanitation. It attacks the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis within hours of infection. Children under five are the most vulnerable, but polio can be prevented with vaccination.
Success in reducing case numbers worldwide has been largely due to intense national and regional immunisation campaigns in babies and children.
Latest Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) figures show that worldwide, there were 33 cases of polio in 2018 and six so far in 2019 - 16 of them in Pakistan and 23 in Afghanistan. These two, plus Nigeria, are the last remaining countries where the disease is endemic.
The GPEI, which includes the WHO, the Gates Foundation, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and others, began its push to wipe out polio in 1988, when the disease was endemic in 125 countries and was paralysing almost 1,000 children a day worldwide.
— Reuters
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