Million USD to Fight Poliomyelitis
Russia is ready to invest 4 million USD for the universal fight against poliomyelitis.
According to the Russian Finance Ministry, Russia has already transferred 1 million USD to the WHO’s Global Initiative to fight poliomyelitis.
According to Galina Lipskaya, WHO coordinator in Copenhagen, “The poliomyelitis extermination is the unexampled global program where all countries of the World take part. We speak now not only about the children’s vaccination, but also about the total extermination of poliomyelitis and its pathogens to guarantee the victory over this dangerous disease”.
The financing of this Global program is being implemented by the coalition of partner organizations including WHO, Rotary clubs, UNICEF, American center for diseases control, Asian and European governments. The international community has already invested over 3 billion USD to the program. As a result over 1 million children were prevented from dying and over 5 million children from invalidity. The Russian government joined the G8 countries having taken obligation to invest 4 million USD as the program support during next 3 years.
This entero-virus disease affected 350 thousand people in 125 countries in 1998. Today, 15 years after the adoption of the Global program the poliomyelitis is perceptible only in 6 countries – India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Niger, Egypt and Afghanistan.
The fight against poliomyelitis is not only the financing vaccination in the risk countries. The special WHO "stop teams", including physicians, epidemiologists, practical health services experts from different states of the World, participate in mass immunization campaigns and sanitary inspections in the risk countries.