Polio programme has many partners

I REFER to the letter in the Irish Examiner (October 10) entitled “Polio programme a Rotary project”.

On September 24 last, UNICEF Ireland launched its Kids Helping Kids campaign to raise funds towards the worldwide eradication of polio by 2005. Globally, €183 million is needed to completely eradicate the disease.

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative, of which UNICEF, WHO, Rotary International and the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention are members, is the greatest public health initiative in history and the largest public/private partnership ever convened. Since its inception in 1988 the initiative has cut the transmission of polio by more than 99% and today the virus remains endemic in only seven countries: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Egypt, Afghanistan, Niger and Somalia.