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Joint Press Release
Europe achieves historic milestone as region is declared
polio-free
Global polio eradication effort needs US$ 275 million
to protect this achievement
Copenhagen 21 June 2002 -- The historic decision to certify the WHO
European Region polio-free was announced today at a meeting of the
European Regional Commission for Certification of Poliomyelitis
Eradication (RCC) in Copenhagen. For some 870 million people living in the
region's 51 Member States , this landmark decision is the most important
public health milestone of the new millennium.
"This is a tremendous achievement in the global effort to eradicate
polio. To get where we are today required the full commitment and
cooperation of each of our 51 Member States, the hard work of public
health workers in the field and the firm support of international partners
in coordination with WHO," declared Dr Marc Danzon, WHO Regional Director
for Europe.
The European Region has been free of indigenous polio for over three
years. Europe's last case of indigenous wild poliomyelitis occurred in
eastern Turkey in 1998, when a two-year-old unvaccinated boy was paralysed
by the virus. Poliovirus imported from polio-endemic countries remains a
threat. In 2001 alone, there were three polio cases among Roma children in
Bulgaria and one non-paralytic polio case in Georgia -- all caused by
poliovirus of Asian subcontinent origin. A decade ago, an imported
poliovirus paralysed 71 people and caused two deaths in a community which
refused vaccination in the Netherlands.
Of the recent importations, Sir Joseph Smith, Chairman of the RCC
noted, "We are satisfied that all measures were taken to ensure that wild
poliovirus imported into the Region did not lead to ongoing circulation.
All evidence confirms that. However," he cautioned, "Our work does not
stop here. Throughout the European Region, ongoing vaccination and
surveillance is vital. The risk of poliovirus being imported into Europe
will continue until we eradicate polio globally."
The path to a polio-free Europe began in 1988, following the call of
the World Health Assembly to eradicate polio. A partnership was set up,
spearheaded by WHO, Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) and UNICEF, to free the world of the disease.
Success in Europe was achieved through unprecedented coordinated national
immunization campaigns, known as Operation MECACAR, which involved 18
polio-endemic countries and areas in the WHO European and Eastern
Mediterranean Regions . Sixty million children under five years old
received two extra doses of poliovaccine every year from 1995-98. Since
1997, MECACAR included special door-to-door mass vaccination in the
high-risk areas of these countries. Supplementary vaccination campaigns
have continued in the highest risk countries through 2002. This
synchronization of immunization days between neighboring countries has
become a model for eradicating polio globally.
An independent panel of international public health experts who make up
the RCC has been engaged in the formal polio-free certification process in
Europe since 1996. Before certification could be declared, the RCC had to
scrutinize surveillance data and the evidence of national certification
committees. In addition, it received firm commitments from all ministries
of health on maintaining immunization and surveillance. "Excellent
surveillance for acute flaccid paralysis is an essential tool in regional
certification, and in the global initiative to eradicate polio. It
provides the exact location and ages of every child stricken with polio,
guiding immediate immunization responses," said Dr David Fleming, Acting
Director of the CDC. "Sustaining surveillance will be vital in guarding
against the ongoing threat of importations."
In addition to maintaining immunization, surveillance and the ability
to respond to importations, European countries are now cataloguing all
laboratory stocks of the poliovirus, as part of a global plan to ensure
effective containment in a polio-free world. In contrast to smallpox where
absolute containment was the goal, this plan aims for effective
containment, to minimise the risk of an accidental or intentional
reintroduction of wild poliovirus by handling retained materials under the
appropriate biosafety conditions.
Since the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was launched in 1988, two
regions have been certified polio-free: the Americas in 1994, and the
Western Pacific in 2000. Polio cases have dropped from an estimated
350,000 cases in 125 countries in 1988 to 480 reported cases in only 10
polio-endemic countries in 2001.
"In Europe and elsewhere we have worked to reach children living in
some of the most difficult conditions imaginable, including
conflict-affected areas," said Philip D. O'Brien, UNICEF Regional
Director for Central and Eastern Europe. "This unprecedented effort,
which has been rewarded today with European certification, must be
continued until we reach all children, everywhere, with polio vaccine."
A US$ 275 million funding gap for global eradication activities through
2005 is now the single biggest threat to achieving polio's eradication
globally, required to minimise the risk to the children of Europe. "This
is truly an historic achievement," said Rudolf Hörndler, Chairman of the
European PolioPlus Committee for Rotary International. "Yet as we get
closer to reaching our goal of a polio-free world, we must not grow
complacent. Our toughest challenges are ahead of us -- a US$ 275 million
funding gap remains." As the volunteer arm and lead private sector partner
in the global effort to eradicate polio, Rotary has contributed over US$
14 million to end polio in Europe, and US$ 462 million worldwide to date.
In addition, Rotary members volunteer their time to help immunise children
during national immunisation days. To help the global effort to close the
funding gap, Rotary will launch its second major fundraising campaign to
raise US$ 80 million through 2003 this July.
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For more information, please contact:
Jo Bailey, UNICEF, New York
+1 212 326-7566, jbailey@unicef.org
Liuba Negru, WHO, Copenhagen +45
3917-1344, mobile +45 20 45 92 74, lne@who.dk
Claudia Drake, WHO, Geneva +41 22
791-3832, mobile +41 79 475 5471, drakec@who.int
Christine McNab, WHO, Geneva +41 22
791-4688, mobile +41 22 791 4688, mcnabc@who.int
Vivian Fiore, Rotary
International, Chicago +1 847 866-3234, fiorev@rotaryintl.org |
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