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 In a telephone interview with Reuters, Gates was optimistic about
the global plan to eradicate the paralyzing viral disease, but said
Afghanistan's conflict and power struggles hamper progress.
"The big issue there is always with the Taliban," said Gates, whose
multi-billion dollar philanthropic Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
is one of the biggest funders of the polio eradication campaign.
Polio is a virus that spreads in areas with poor sanitation. It
attacks the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis
within hours of infection. Children under five are the most
vulnerable, but polio can be prevented with vaccination.
Success in reducing case numbers worldwide has been largely due to
intense national and regional immunization campaigns in babies and
children.
Latest Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) figures show that
worldwide, there were 33 cases of polio in 2018 and six so far in
2019 - 16 of them in Pakistan and 23 in Afghanistan. These two, plus
Nigeria, are the last remaining countries where the disease is
endemic.
The GPEI, which includes the WHO, the Gates Foundation, the United
Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and others, began its push to wipe
out polio in 1988, when the disease was endemic in 125 countries and
was paralyzing almost 1,000 children a day worldwide.
Since then, there has been at least a 99 percent reduction in cases.
But eradicating the disease - something that has only ever been
achieved with one other human disease, smallpox - is proving a long
and challenging task.
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"We've got to get Afghanistan and Pakistan to zero," Gates said. "We
need government donors to stay committed."
Gates, a billionaire who co-founded of Microsoft, said the global
polio program is making progress in Pakistan and has a good
relationship with Prime Minister Imran Khan, who has prioritized the
polio fight.
The "only potential negative" in the region is instability in
Afghanistan, Gates said, where Taliban leaders appear to have no
single policy but "decide what they will and what they won't allow"
regarding polio vaccinations.
"That's what we don't have predictability or control over," he said.
"Sometimes they stop the campaigns from taking place. But the ideal
is when they allow house-to-house (vaccine) delivery."
Gates pointed to India, which 12 years ago was responsible for 70
percent of all polio cases and this week marks five years since it
last recorded a case.
Gates had previously described the challenge of wiping out polio in
India, which has a population of 1.3 billion people and some areas
of very poor sanitation, as "mind boggling". Success there, he said,
shows polio can eventually be ended worldwide.
(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Toby Chopra)
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