‘Finish the campaign against polio’

Jan 31st, 2011 5:33 PM UTC
By Brooke Riley

As Malaka and I sat in the Roosevelt House, the place where President Roosevelt spent time recovering from polio and launched his political career, we heard the message loud and clear from panelists at the “Polio Eradication and the Power of Vaccines” event: “finish the campaign.” We’ve made extraordinary progress in the fight against polio but the job isn’t finished yet.

For those of you who may be wondering why polio and why now, Bill Gates shared three important answers in his annual letter. First, eradicating polio will mean that no child will ever be paralyzed or die from the disease in the future. Second, eradicating polio saves money and finally, success in polio eradication will help energize the field of global health and demonstrate how investments in health save lives, leading to other global health successes.

Dr. Oshinksy, Prof. Rees and Dr. de Quadros take questions for bloggers at the event

Professor Helen Rees from the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization described the polio eradication effort as a “gateway process” that will allow us to strengthen routine health services along the way and save children’s lives. Similarly, Dr. Ciro de Quadros from the Sabin Vaccine Institute stressed that the polio eradication effort “goes beyond lives saved and money saved but also helps transform the health infrastructure.” The gateway process that Professor Rees and Dr. de Quadros described will allow the world to achieve many other successes in global health and create a “culture of prevention.”

A generation ago, President Roosevelt rallied Americans to support the fight against polio, and now it’s our generation’s turn to finish the job and make polio eradication our legacy. Bill Gates said something I think particularly resonates among ONE members and I wanted to share it with you: “Not everyone can go into the field, or even donate. But every one of us can be an advocate for people whose voices are often not heard.” Supporting child vaccines will ensure that every child has a healthy start in life and now it’s our job to get that message out and “finish the campaign.”

TAGS: ONE, Policy News, Polio, vaccines