OVER 400 global researchers and experts yesterday converged on New York, United States of America, and put paid to negative insinuations about the polio vaccine and declared their support for concerted efforts to end the scourge.
The researchers, who noted that the world had never been closer to a world free from polio, stressed the achievability of polio eradication and thereafter endorsed the Eradication and Endgame Strategic Plan, a new strategy by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, to reach and sustain eradication.
Minister of State for Heath, Dr. Ali Pate, who was part of the team of researchers that made the declaration, said in an on-line chat with The Guardian Thursday that the declaration is crucial to show global commitment and build the momentum needed to take advantage of the unique opportunity to end polio forever.
He said the scientists and experts who signed the declaration are from 80 countries and include Nobel laureates, vaccine and infectious disease experts, public health school deans, pediatricians and other health authorities.
"More than 40 leading universities and schools of public health and medicine are promoting the declaration on their websites, including Aga Khan University, the Harvard School of Public Health, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Al Azhar University (Egypt), University of Cape Town, Redeemer's University (Nigeria) and Christian Medical College Vellore (India)," he added.
The declaration, according to additional information provided from New York, recalled how polio vaccines have already protected hundreds of millions of children from the disease and eliminated one of the three types of wild poliovirus, proving that eradication is scientifically feasible.
The Declaration called on the international community to meet the goals in the GPEI plan for delivering polio vaccines to more children at risk, particularly in Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan, where polio remains endemic and emergency action plans launched over the past years have resulted in significant improvements in vaccine coverage.
The Scientific Declaration on Polio Eradication launched by hundreds of scientists, doctors and other experts from around the world declared that an end to the paralyzing disease is achievable and endorsed a comprehensive new strategy to secure a lasting polio-free world by 2018.
The more than 400 signatories to the declaration urged governments, international organizations and civil society to do their part to seize the historic opportunity to end polio and protect the world's most vulnerable children and future generations from this debilitating but preventable disease. The declaration calls for full funding and implementation of the Polio Eradication and Endgame Strategic Plan 2013-2018, developed by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), which estimates that ending the disease entirely by 2018 can be achieved for a cost of approximately $5.5 billion.
