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By: Jennifer Jones and Ramesh Ferris
Canada’s more than $1 billion spent to date paves the way to ending polio, stronger health systems worldwide
On the heels of World Polio Day (Oct. 24), we reflect with gratitude on the Canadian government’s most recently announced $151 million contribution to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI).
As Canadians and Rotary members, we take great pride in Canada’s ongoing leadership and commitment to global polio eradication. The Canadian government’s longstanding and unwavering support, historically, transcends partisan politics, with Liberal and Conservative factions — and individuals and entities at every level of authority — helping the world reach significant polio-free milestones, bringing us ever closer to ending polio for good.
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This year, we note with appreciation the significant strides made by Rotary International, our GPEI partners, world governments, and others in the fight to eradicate polio from the world. We are pleased to honour hard-earned milestones, including the World Health Organization’s (WHO) South-East Asia Region (which includes India) celebrating a decade of being certified wild poliovirus free and its Region of the Americas (which includes Canada) celebrating 30 years of the same.
Notably, Canada was the first to prioritize global polio eradication via funding in the late-1980s and by elevating its importance in intergovernmental political and economic forums more than two decades ago. This new pledge — which brings Canada’s cumulative contribution to more than $1 billion to date — supports the GPEI’s efforts to immunize 370 million children a year against polio (a laudable action as preventive immunization is at the heart of the polio eradication program’s efforts).
The 2024 milestones — as well as previous achievements, including the certification of the WHO African region as wild polio-free in 2020 — are the result of safe, effective vaccines which have been deployed in large-scale immunization campaigns spearheaded by Rotary and its GPEI partners for more than 35 years.
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Thanks to these campaigns, which have taken place in some of the most vulnerable and challenging places in the world, wild polio cases have been reduced by 99.9 per cent worldwide. More than 20 million people (equivalent to more than half the population of Canada) who would otherwise have been paralyzed are walking, and more than 1.5 million people are alive who would have otherwise died.
Yet, despite this extraordinary progress, polio eradication efforts face daunting challenges — from conflict, political instability, climate disasters, and anti-vaccine sentiment — in some of the most fragile settings in the world, including in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the last two places in the world that remain wild-polio endemic.
And, unfortunately, Gaza reported the first polio case in 25 years, resulting in the paralysis of a 10-month old child this summer, underscoring that polio knows no boundaries and that polio anywhere is a threat everywhere.
Clearly, funding eradication efforts has never been more important. Rotary, a founding member of the GPEI, has committed more than US$2.7 billion, and counting, to polio eradication efforts to date, including a recent US$500,000 commitment to support a two-round polio vaccination campaign in Gaza.
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This funding, along with Canada’s recent pledge and funds from Canadian Rotary members (which total over US$48 million to date) also helps sustain the GPEI’s global health infrastructure that supports disease surveillance, laboratory networks, and trained health care workers, many of them women, all of which serve to provide additional health services and humanitarian aid to those in need, as well as respond to other diseases, including COVID-19, malaria, Ebola, Mpox, and more.
As we walk the last kilometres of a shared journey to end polio, we again return to a place of gratitude for Canada’s commitment because it revitalizes our efforts. It inspires all of our partners to re-commit to ending this disease through high-quality immunization campaigns and to continue to support the GPEI’s global health infrastructure that responds to a multitude of concerns.
We remain steadfast in our efforts and advocacy and encourage others to join us — we must not let challenges deter us but rather use them to fuel our fight and propel us to seek the sustained political and financial support of other governments, nonprofits, and concerned citizens like you.
Ultimately, we have the tools and the strategy to ensure no child ever suffers again from this paralyzing disease, and each one of us is a stakeholder in achieving this vision.
Windsor’s Jennifer Jones was Rotary International president in 2022-23. Ramesh Ferris is a polio survivor, Rotary and Team End Polio member, endurance athlete, and international immunization advocate.
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