In Relentless Pursuit of the Missed Child
Last week Rotarians and Rotaractors gathered at the Global Polio Eradication Initiative event in the House of Commons following Commonwealth Day, to receive an update on the current state of Polio eradication, ’Closing in on Zero’.
Rotary International President, Stephanie Urchick, thanked Rotarians in Great Britain and Ireland for our contribution of $48M and the UK Government for its contribution of $1.76Bn to the campaign to eradicate polio since 1988. We are living in uncertain times and the hope was expressed that when the detailed review of international aid is made, the importance of polio eradication to world security and the soft power of governments will avoid the worst case scenario.
To put this into context, Dr Hamid Jafari, Director for Eradication, WHO Eastern & Mediterranean Region, reminded us that wild polio still remains entrenched in the hardest places to reach, particularly areas of conflict, weak systems and in communities affected by crisis. He highlighted four key areas;
- The ability to reach and vaccinate all children, which can be obstructed for many reasons
- The greatest affected children are in the poorest, most marginalised population, who are often in enforced migration.
- A social disconnect between the programme and communities which hampers delivery
- Inadequate planning and delivery on occasions which can lead to missed opportunity.
We were comforted to learn that there is a clear strategy to overcome all these challenges based on listening to and negotiating with community leaders and influencers at a local level and by empowering them to vaccinate their children. In this way we can achieve the relentless pursuit of the missed child.
In addition to funding, polio partners also provide valuable technical and logistical support in the field and laboratories. We were reminded that when Covid-19 started to spread in many places the eradication teams were the only people who had the knowledge, skills and resources to confront the challenge
Finally, Dr Jafari closed with a reminder of why we should continue, with the main reasons being:
- We remain on the verge of history and failing would be a humanitarian disaster and within a decade 200,000 children would contract polio every year
- This investment is economically beneficial and the reverse would be the case if we did not see it through to the end. That would be a financial disaster
- Increasing migration makes it all our problem.
RI President, Stephanie reminded us that donations to End Polio Now from Rotarians across the globe has been reducing as people forgot about polio. However, the latest trace of polio, found in environmental sampling in Great Britain and Ireland, was as recent as January.
There are health workers vaccinating 3,000 children a day on buses in Pakistan. They are doing their part, but we also need to consider whether we are doing enough at the moment to continue to deliver our most important objective and to ensure that we succeed in our promise to the children of the world.
