PR No. 77 POLIO ERADICATION A NATIONAL IMPERATIVE – SENATOR AYESHA RAZA TELLS GLOBAL FORUM ON POLIO Islamabad: June 13, 2017

Addressing global leaders at Drop to Zero – Global Pledging event for Polio Eradication in Atlanta, USA, Prime Minister’s Focal Person for Polio Eradication Senator Ayesha Raza Farooq said Polio eradication has become our national imperative and most importantly enjoys broad political and popular support.  Led personally by our Prime Minister, a whole of Government effort with effective GPEI support has proven decisive.

Our Prime Minister has made a commitment to a polio-free world for the current and future generations of Pakistani children, we have absolutely no intention of letting them and the children of the world down, said Senator Ayesha.

This is backed up by a direct financial contribution of US$154 million and substantial indirect contribution of $100 million is made each year in Government and security infrastructure and time, she added.

Our National Emergency Action Plan for Polio Eradication is clearly delivering results – to clear the polio reservoirs, respond aggressively to any outbreak and maintain high population immunity elsewhere.  There are no magic solutions, just extraordinary hard work with a focus on the basics of vaccination to ensure success by our heroic vaccinators on the doorstep and inside each home.  We will continue to apply lessons learnt, innovate, refine tactics and work to systematically tackle routine immunization in order to stay the course and finish the job.  We continue to closely coordinate with our Afghanistan counterparts recognizing we have one single epidemiological block.

The event was participated by Mr. Bill Gates co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of International Development of Canada, John Germ, President, Rotary International, Faisal Shuaib, Executive Director, National Primary Healthcare Development Agency of Nigeria, Takashi Shinozuka, Consul General of Japan in Atlanta, Neven Mimica, Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, European Commission HamdullahMohib, Ambassador to the United States, Afghanistan, Anne Schuchat, Acting Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Michel Zaffran, Director, Polio Eradication, World Health Organization

When I was appointed by the Prime Minister in 2014, I must admit that I was a little daunted by the scale and scope of the challenge that confronted my country, said Senator Ayesha.  More than half a million children were inaccessible in our Federally Administered Tribal Areas, many of our 250,000 frontline vaccinators worked in a climate of fear and some made the ultimate sacrifice.  The programme was missing too many children and our surveillance was insufficiently sensitive.

 

Today, there are no longer any children inaccessible to the programme.  Our frontline vaccinators no longer operate in a climate of fear.  Our armed forces and law enforcement agencies have paid for this secure environment with their lives.   Campaign quality has strengthened and we have expanded surveillance to reduce the risk of any missed transmission.

Underpinning these changes have been a number of key shifts –    The Emergency Operation Centres have brought partners together as one team under one roof, under government leadership working towards a single goal, evidence based programming has brought together different data sets guiding and informing all our decision making. We have focused our goal on finding missed children rather than measuring covered children, We have put frontline workers at the centre of the polio eradication effort and Have focused on strengthened performance management and accountability oversight by government everywhere.

The impact of this transformation on the virus has been tremendous this is a zero sum game and we will continue to identify and close the remaining gaps until we achieve and sustain zero.

Senator Ayesha Raza Farooq thanked all donors and partners for their continued support towards this public health milestone for children.  We have travelled a very long way and are now really very close to our destination, She said.

The Global Forum was informed that since the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was launched in 1988, polio cases around the world have dropped by 99.9%. In 1988, polio paralyzed 40 children every hour, resulting in more than 350,000 cases each year across 125 countries.  Last year, just 37 children were paralyzed as a result of polio in only three countries – Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. This is the lowest annual case count in history. To date in 2017, there have been just five cases of polio anywhere in the world, fewer than in any previous year. These cases have been confined to small areas in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Nigeria has not reported a new polio case since August 2016. Polio is on the verge of becoming only the second human disease after smallpox to be eradicated. There has been continued progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as both countries work together to ensure that more children are reached with polio vaccines.

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