CELEBRATING A POLIO-FREE NIGERIA

Today we celebrate an exciting milestone on the road to polio eradication. The World Health Organization has declared Nigeria polio-free and removed it from the list of polio-endemic countries. This means there are no longer any polio-endemic countries in Africa, and only two endemic countries remain in the world.

Rotary should be proud of the important role we have played in this achievement, including granting more than $207 million to eradicate polio in Nigeria, and contributing  countless volunteer hours.

This announcement comes on the heels of another important landmark earlier this week. One of the three strains of wild poliovirus (Type 2) was declared eradicated on 21 September, and we will soon pass three years without a case of Type 3. This means that only one type of the wild poliovirus continues to circulate.

After thirty years of dedication, Rotary’s dream of consigning polio to history may soon be realized.

Now that the end is in sight, how do we cross that finish line?

The Polio Oversight Board (POB) met today to reexamine the roadmap to ending polio. They determined that overall the strategy is working. However, the path to making history contains obstacles, and the complex political and security climates in both Pakistan and Afghanistan mean the wild virus continues to circulate in these two countries. As we move forward, some strategic shifts are needed to address ongoing challenges, such as missed children, surveillance quality and low immunization rates in conflict areas.

With a fully funded program and global commitment to ending this disease, we have the opportunity to interrupt transmission of the wild poliovirus in Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2016, opening the door for the certification of global eradication in 2019. An increase in resources of $1.5 billion will help Rotary and its partners to focus on the last and most vulnerable children in Pakistan and Afghanistan, while continuing to protect hundreds of millions of children already living in polio-free countries.

You can be proud of the leading role Rotary has played in the impressive gains of recent years, and our recognition in top media around the world. The commitment and ingenuity of Rotarians has brought us to the threshold of one the greatest achievements in the history of public health. With your continued support we will soon see our dream of a polio-free world realized.