United States: The worldwide elimination of polio obstacles could cause delays because US financial cuts extending to hundreds of millions of dollars across multiple years must be undone, according to a senior World Health Organization official.
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The WHO operates under a program with UNICEF and the Gates Foundation to put an end to polio.
WHO’s efforts now face challenges after the United States announced its withdrawal from the organization, which caused its partnership with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to stop.
The State Department stopped all funding from UNICEF for its polio program after carrying out major USAID funding reductions across the entire world to implement President Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ policy.
The partnership is without USD 133 million in U.S. funds for this year, according to Hamid Jafari, who leads polio eradication for the WHO Eastern Mediterranean region, as Reuters reported.
Two nations in this region continue to experience wild poliovirus transmission: Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“If the funding shortfall continues, it may potentially delay eradication, it may lead to more children getting paralyzed,” noted Jafari, while, adding that the longer it took to end polio, the more expensive it would be.
Through the partnership, he explained that they continue working on strategies to handle the funding shortage with the intention that US funding will resume targeting polio elimination.
“We are looking at other funding sources … to sustain both the priority staff and priority activities,” he stated.
Vaccination activities across the world
The vaccination activities in Afghanistan, together with Pakistan, will maintain their protection under his plans.
The representatives from UNICEF did not reply to comment requests, and Gates Foundation representatives stated that philanthropic organizations could not replace US funding, as Reuters reported.
Saudi Arabia donated USD 500 million to the eradication effort last week.
The organization projects that it will require USD 2.4 billion in addition to its current 2029 budget because it accepted last year that the effort to eliminate the disease would span a longer period and would become more expensive than initially planned.