The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced on Sunday that it will contribute $1.2 billion to the battle to eradicate polio as health specialists from all over the world gathered in Berlin for a meeting.
‘The disease can be eliminated. However, despite our progress, the disease still poses a threat,’ Co-chair of the foundation Bill Gates stated in a statement.
The money will go to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), a public-private partnership managed by the national government with the objective of eradicating the disease by 2026.
The primary cause of the incredibly contagious disease polio is an infection with a virus that damages spinal cord and brain cells after entering the central nervous system.
Those who survive the sickness typically end up paralysed or with limbs that have atrophy and deformity.
The majority of polio cases often afflict children under the age of five, while everyone who has not received the vaccine is at risk.
Since its start in 1988, the GPEI has reportedly contributed to preventing more than 20 million cases of paralysis and reducing the prevalence of polio by more than 99 percent worldwide.
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