HQ Team
February 24, 2025: Saudi Arabia has reaffirmed a $500 million pledge to the WHO’s Global Polio Eradication Initiative to fight the disease plaguing vulnerable children, according to a statement.
The funds will help provide polio vaccines to benefit 370 million children each year and “stop transmission of the virus for good,” according to the WHO statement.
The funds were initially pledged in April 2024 at the first-ever World Economic Forum Special Meeting hosted in Riyadh.
“The world is on the path to eradicating polio once and for all, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is proud to be part of this global initiative,” said H.E. Dr Abdullah al Rabeeah.
‘Preventable disease’
“The kingdom’s contribution will go toward the important work of protecting the most vulnerable children of today so that the generations of tomorrow can live free from this preventable disease.”
Since the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) was formed in 1988, the partnership has helped prevent more than 20 million cases of paralysis, prevented more than 1.5 million childhood deaths and reduced the incidence of wild poliovirus by 99.9%.
The transmission of polio in conflict-affected areas in Gaza, Sudan, and Yemen is a stark reminder that where conflict debilitates health and sanitation systems, polio will inevitably appear unless we eradicate all forms of the virus.
But fraught humanitarian crises – from parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan to Somalia and Yemen – have allowed the virus to continue paralysing the world’s most vulnerable children.
Virus returns in Gaza
In 2024, the virus returned to Gaza in the occupied Palestinian territory after 25 years to paralyse a child, “a cruel reminder that as long as polio exists anywhere, children everywhere will remain at risk.”
“We have come so far in our shared mission to consign polio to history, but the last mile is the hardest,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“Finishing the job requires unwavering determination, and this generous contribution from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will help us to reach children in conflict-affected and other difficult-to-reach areas as we work together to realize our vision of a polio-free world.”
UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said: “As we saw in Gaza last year, the hard-won gains of the global eradication effort are fragile if vaccination rates are allowed to drop.
“With the support of committed partners like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, we can better reach every child with life-saving vaccination and end polio, once and for all.”
‘Global leadership required’
A few decades ago, polio paralysed 350,000 children each year. In 2023, that number dropped to just 12 – a testament to the unwavering commitment of countries and partners worldwide, Bill Gates, chair of the Gates Foundation, said a statement.
“The world is at the brink of finally eradicating this deadly disease, but reaching the finish line will require continued global leadership and support,” the billionaire said.
In July last year, the GPEI’s Polio Oversight Board (POB) decided to extend the timelines needed to achieve polio eradication— to the end of 2027 for wild poliovirus and the end of 2029 for type 2 variant poliovirus due to a financial crunch.
In October of the same year, the POB determined that the total funding needs of the extended 2022-2029 strategic period were $6.9 billion, an increase from the $4.8 billion projected for the 2022-2026 strategic period.
The board stated that there was a shortfall of $2.4 billion that was “urgently needed to overcome today’s challenges and make polio history.”
Until 2023, the US, which intends to pull out of the WHO, had contributed $4.54 billion to the polio initiative.
