Qatar Charity (QC) will soon launch a fundraising campaign to support the Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s (GPEI) new, comprehensive six-year plan to achieve polio eradication by 2018.
The campaign will be launched as an agreement was signed between QC and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to support achieving a polio-free world.
QC will raise funds specifically to support polio vaccination campaigns to protect children in targeted areas and to help raise awareness of the importance of permanently ending polio in Pakistan.
The foundation will match funds raised by QC during the campaign.
Polio is a vaccine-preventable disease that can lead to paralysis or death. Due to tremendous advances in 2012, today there are the fewest number of polio cases in the fewest countries ever, creating a unique opportunity to end the disease forever.
Polio remains endemic in only three countries – Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria – down from 125 in 1988. In response to this opportunity, the GPEI developed a long-term strategy to achieve global eradication by 2018.
The agreement was signed by Bill Gates, Co-Chair, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and QC CEO Yousef bin Ahmed Al Kuwari, in advance of the Global Vaccine Summit, being held in Abu Dhabi during World Immunization Week (April 24 to 30).
The Summit is organised to continue the momentum of the Decade of Vaccines – a vision and commitment to reach all people with the vaccines they need.
Critical to this vision is polio eradication, along with the development of affordable new vaccines and the ability for every country in the world to deliver vaccines to every child.
The joint cooperation hopes to support other future causes. The six-year GPEI plan simultaneously addresses the need to interrupt transmission of the wild poliovirus by the end of 2014, strengthen routine immunization, and lay the groundwork for securing a lasting polio-free world.
It is estimated that GPEI could deliver net benefits of $40bn-$50bn by 2035.
Source:
The Peninsula
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