Polio programme has many partners
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.
Never have we suggested that the initiative is solely a UNICEF one. We continually mention and are grateful UNICEF is involved with several key partners.
In October 2002, we informed the Irish chapter of Rotary International of our plans to run a campaign to raise funds towards the global eradication of polio. We invited Rotary International to join us. The Irish chapter agreed a joint campaign would yield tremendous benefits but declined our offer on the grounds it might undermine their own tremendous efforts to raise money to support the eradication programme.
Maura Quinn,
Executive Director,
UNICEF Ireland,
25-26, Great Strand Street,
Dublin 1.
