President Higgins leads tributes to Irish-born polio eradication pioneer Aidan O'Leary 

Aidan O'Leary, director of the WHO's Polio Eradication Programme, has died, aged 59.

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has led tributes following the sudden death of the Irishman who was spearheading its global efforts to eradicate polio.

Dublin-born, Geneva-based Aidan O'Leary, the director of the WHO's Polio Eradication Programme since 2021, died suddenly while on a family holiday on Tuesday. He was 59.

President Michael D Higgins led the tributes saying Mr O’Leary "was a wonderful person who dedicated his life to helping those living in the most difficult, war-torn parts of the world".

"It is with the most remote and vulnerable people on the planet that Aidan worked, and it is amongst those people that he will be remembered the most and his legacy of work most cherished.

"May I extend my deepest sympathies to Aidan’s wife Karen, to his children Darragh and Eimear, to his brother Art with whom I worked during his term as Secretary General to the President, and to all of his wider family, friends and colleagues who I know are feeling such shock at his unexpected loss."

WHO director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described him as “an outstanding humanitarian”.

 “He served tirelessly in the most difficult parts of the world, to help the most vulnerable populations survive and thrive, and to end polio,” he said.

I'm devastated and heartbroken at the passing of a very dear friend and colleague, Aidan O'Leary, Director of the @WHO Polio Eradication Programme.

Aidan's passing is a shock to all of us, and especially to his family and friends in his native Ireland and around the world. On… pic.twitter.com/p5YXJepTqm

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) August 7, 2024

“He embodied the ideal of service and solidarity across peoples and borders.

“His passing is a terrible loss for WHO, for the UN, and for all of humanity.

“We will miss Aidan enormously. But we are committed to continuing his legacy to realise his vision, and ours, of a polio-free world.” 

Mr O’Leary, who lived in Galway before relocating to Geneva, had vast experience of emergencies and public health crises and supported some of the world’s most vulnerable people in other emergency settings.

Before joining the WHO in 2021, he had served as head of office in Yemen for the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, a role he had also previously held in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as head of OCHA’s regional office for the Syria crisis.

He served as deputy director of operations for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) based in Gaza, and he was chief of polio eradication for UNICEF, working in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the final two polio-endemic countries in the world.

In a statement, the WHO’s Global Polio Eradication Programme said it was devastated by the news of his sudden death.

Aidan was a true leader, inspiring us all to strive to attain a better world.

“Most recently, he was leading our global effort to eradicate polio as director of the WHO Polio Eradication Programme.

“But already prior to that, he had been working tirelessly for the betterment of humanity.” 

The agency said on a personal level, Mr O’Leary was an extremely personable, open, and gentle friend and colleague.

“He will be missed deeply both on a professional and on a personal level,” it said.

Mr O’Leary is survived by his wife and two children.

Feared disease

In the early 20th century, polio was one of the most feared diseases in industrialised countries, paralysing hundreds of thousands of children every year.

However, following the introduction of effective vaccines in the 1950s and 1960s, it was brought under control and practically eliminated as a public health problem in these countries.

Rotary International launched a global effort to immunise the world’s children against polio in 1985 and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) was launched three years later.

When the initiative started, polio paralysed more than 1,000 children worldwide every day.  Since then, more than 2.5bn children have been immunised against it. Today, wild poliovirus continues to circulate in only two countries, and global incidence of polio cases has decreased by 99%.