Bill Gates meets Senator Ayesha Raza to discuss a Polio-free World

Islamabad

We have gone from 40 cases an hour back in 1988 to just 40 cases in all of 2016. But if we stop now and don’t get to zero, experts say that within a decade, there would be 200,000 new cases of polio every year. What’s so impressive about the polio programme is that through persistence and innovation, it has risen to the challenge, again and again. It is this talent for generating new ideas, building on lessons learned, and adapting to new circumstances that makes me optimistic we will get to zero.

Founder of Microsoft and Co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Bill Gates shared these views with Pakistan’s Focal Person for Polio Eradication Senator Ayesha Raza Farooq during a meeting arranged to discuss global progress on eradicating polio. Ayesha is currently on a visit to Atlanta in connection with the Global Forum on Polio Eradication.

Bill Gates said today, 16 million people are walking who would have been paralyzed if they had not been protected against polio, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of public health workers. “This new injection of funding and commitment will ensure that in the future, no child will ever again suffer from the consequences of this incurable, but preventable, disease,” he said. Bill Gates also emphasized that while polio continues to exist anywhere in the world, children everywhere remain at risk. “Each year, the GPEI reaches 450 million children to vaccinate them against the virus, in polio endemic countries and elsewhere, and maintains disease surveillance systems in more than 70 countries to find and stop every last virus,” he said.

Ayesha expressed satisfaction that international governments and organization pledged $1.2 billion for the Global Polio Eradication effort which is critical to sustaining the world’s largest public health programme in countries affected by the disease. She apprised Bill Gates of the measures taken by Pakistan to stop poliovirus transmission. “Despite dropping to 2 cases from 306, we continue to forge ahead with the same zeal as our ultimate aim is to reach zero case and sustain it,” she assured. The importance of routine immunization was also discussed during the meeting.