The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced that despite considerable progress, more than 100 children in Afghanistan and Pakistan were paralysed by the poliovirus over the past year.
The 13th meeting of the Regional Subcommittee for Polio Eradication and Outbreaks, hosted by the WHO, was held virtually on Sunday. During the session, conflict, humanitarian crises, insecurity, and climate change were identified as major obstacles to polio eradication efforts.
Mansoor bin Ebrahim bin Saad Al-Mahmoud, Qatar’s Minister of Health, stressed that polio remains one of the region’s foremost public health priorities and affirmed that any threat to the health and well-being of children must be eliminated.
In response to the decline in funding for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative and its impact on essential healthcare services, including childhood vaccinations, the WHO has introduced emergency measures to ensure the continuation of critical programme activities in endemic and polio-affected countries.
Health ministers and representatives from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen participated in the meeting. Discussions focused on intensifying efforts across the region to reach unvaccinated children and protect them from polio and other preventable diseases.
The subcommittee also issued a statement calling for urgent action to halt the transmission of the wild poliovirus in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It urged member countries, donors, and the international community to sustain their support for these two remaining endemic countries to strengthen polio eradication efforts.
