GPEI – A Brief Review of 2023 and Full Focus on 2024
“As the year draws to a close, efforts intensify against the virus in 2024”
Article Summary:
WHO Representative in Afghanistan, Dr. Luo Dapeng, vaccinating children against measles in a mobile clinic in Baba Wali Village of Kandahar province. © WHO/Afghanistan
“The Global Polio Eradication Initiative has two goals laid out in its current strategy: to interrupt all remaining transmission of endemic wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) and to stop all outbreaks of variant poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2). 2023 was a critical year for progressing on each of these, and while our urgent and diligent work to end polio must continue into 2024, the GPEI achieved incredible things in the past twelve months.”
Continuing work in endemic countries
“Despite significant geo-political and environmental challenges in the two remaining WPV1-endemic countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan, the polio programme has continued to reach greater numbers of children with polio vaccines.”
nOPV2 Vaccination at Guilding Angel School Tunga, Minna, Niger. © WHO/AFRO
Progress on variant polio outbreaks
“Thanks to the novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2), strong political commitment and community-based efforts to reach more children with the vaccine, the number of cases of variant poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) continued to decline in 2023.
Nearly 1 billion doses of nOPV2, a comparably safe, effective, but more genetically stable version of the existing type 2 oral polio vaccine (mOPV2), have now been administered across 35 countries, protecting millions of children from illness and paralysis.”
A global effort
“Most importantly, thanks to the efforts of the GPEI and its partners, health workers vaccinated more than 400 million children in 2023, preventing an estimated 650,000 cases of paralysis from polio and saving the lives of up to 60,000 children. Building full, healthy futures was at the core of Rotary International’s mission when it began this fight to end polio for good in 1985, and when the GPEI was launched in 1988—35 years ago.”
For the Complete Article Published by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative: