21 January

Rotary and Gates announce major new funding for polio eradication
New contributions clear vote of confidence in intensified polio eradication effort

21 January 2009 - Rotary International and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced a further joint financing commitment of US$355 million towards the global effort to eradicate polio.  Additional significant funding commitments were also announced by Germany and the United Kingdom. 

Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said:  "Rotarians, government leaders and health professionals have made a phenomenal commitment so polio afflicts only a small number of the world's children.  Rotary in particular has inspired my own personal commitment to get deeply involved in achieving eradication."  Worldwide, indigenous wild poliovirus transmission has been eradicated from all but four countries (India, Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan). Watch video

WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan commented:  "Together with enhanced commitment by the last four endemic countries at all levels, the new funding commitments are precisely what is needed to help the governments in these countries overcome the remaining barriers to reaching every child with polio vaccine." 

These new funding commitments are a clear vote of confidence in the intensified polio eradication effort, launched in February 2007 by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) stakeholders, to collectively address the remaining technical, financial and operational barriers to polio eradication. 

By end-2008, the intensified eradication effort had demonstrated that all challenges can be overcome.  With the near-term feasibility of polio eradication affirmed, and recognizing that each of the remaining four countries faces a unique set of challenges requiring country-specific approaches, a framework for a new five-year GPEI Strategic Plan 2009-2013 has been endorsed, combining proven eradication strategies with recently-developed tools and tactics, and incorporating bold new initiatives to scale-up the approaches needed to address the remaining challenges. 

Outlining a corresponding five-year budget through 2013, the GPEI published its updated Financial resource requirements (FRR), summarizing the funding needed to successfully interrupt wild poliovirus transmission globally and prepare for the post-eradication era.  With these new financial commitments, the global funding gap now stands at US$ 340 million for the critical two-year period of 2009-2010. Full Press Release (in PDF)