SECRETARY-GENERAL URGES INCREASED SUPPORT FOR FINAL STAGE

OF

POLIO ERADICATION, IN MESSAGE TO KUALA LUMPUR SUMMIT

Following is Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s message on polio eradication on the occasion of the tenth10^thIslamic Summit Conference in Kuala Lumpur,  16-17 October, delivered by Dr. Abdelaziz Saleh, Special Adviser to the Regional Director on Medicines, World Health Organization Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean:

U N I T E D   N A T I O N SN A T I O N S   U N I E S

              THE SECRETARY-GENERAL

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   MESSAGE ON POLIO ERADICATION ON THE OCCASION

OF THE 10^{THISLAMIC SUMMIT CONFERENCE} 

          Kuala Lumpur, 16-178October

          Delivered by Dr Abdelaziz Saleh,

     Special Adviser to the Regional Director on Medicines,

   World Health Organization Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean

The campaign to eradicate polio is an illustration of the very founding principles of the United Nations.   For the sake of our children, this humanitarian goal has transcended politics and dispute.   Civil wars have stopped to let vaccinators pass.   Governments, international agencies, private enterprise and 20tens of millionsof dedicated volunteers have worked together to achieve the impossible.   Billions of children have been vaccinated in all corners of the world, including in regions that have suffered years of conflict.   Last year, polio could be found in only seven countries –- Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Niger, Afghanistan, Egypt, and Somalia.   By 2005, thanks to the Global Polio Eradicationpolio programme Initiative,  5five million children will be walking who would otherwise have been paralyzsed.

Yet this successprogress is extremely  fragile, and could still be undonecould stillwillelude us if we do not step up oururgently increase   support for this final leg stage of the eradication effort.   As long as poliovirus transmission continues, children the world over are at risk of being infectedby thisdisease.    This year, polio-free areas in West Africa and the Middle East have been re-infected with the virus, endangering the significant investmentsof those made by countriesin those regions.    In order to preserve the substantial gainsachievedmadeto date, Ttwo major obstacles must be overcome.

First, all children under the age of five in the seven remaining polio-infected countries must be vaccinated multiple times with the oral polio vaccine during mass campaigns.   T, and the political, traditional and religious leaders of every community where the virus is found must be mobilized to ensure that no child is missed..Each infected country must conduct several immunization campaigns a year through 2005 to wipe out the virus. The political, traditional and religious leaders of every community where the virus is found must be mobilized to ensure that no child is missed.

SecondSecond, the world must quickly secure the necessary financial resources. Only $210 million dollars is lacking for polio-eradication activities through 2005 -– a relatively small sum of money to reap a hugelarge global triumph for children.  The most urgent funding requirement is for the polio-surveillance infrastructure to ensure rapid detection and response to the disease,and to Money is needed to buy vaccine, train vaccinators, access children in remote and dangerous regions, and to monitor every village so that the virus has nowhere to hide.   If these funds are not made available soonquickly, we will put at risk the     $3three-billion-dollar investment behind the success of the past 15 years.

Once polio is eradicated, no child and no child’s family will ever again know the debilitating effects of polio paralysis.   The world could save up to  $US$ 1.5 billiondollars annually in averted health-care and vaccinationcosts -– savings that can be reallocated to other pressing global health needs.  Countries will benefit from having a stronger workforce.   Above all, we will have given a wonderful and enduring gift to the children of the world.

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