Islamabad - Prime Minister’s Focal Person on Polio Eradication Senator Ayesha Raza Farooq on Thursday said that the support of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) has helped Pakistan in preventing the poliovirus transmission.

She said this in a meeting held with Microsoft Founder and BMGF Co-chair Bill Gates during a visit to Atlanta in connection with Global Forum on Polio Eradication.

Farooq said the support of Gates to this noble cause of safeguarding humanity from the clutches of a crippling disease will go down in history when the world’s epic fight against polio is documented in times to come.

She expressed satisfaction that international governments and organisations pledged $1.2 billion for the global polio eradication effort, which is critical to sustaining the world’s largest public health programme in countries affected by the disease.

The senator apprised Gates of the measures taken by Pakistan to stop transmission of poliovirus.

“Insecurity and inaccessibility were the major challenges which have been tackled through political will, determination and innovation,” she said.

Senator Farooq also said that despite dropping to two cases from 306, the government continues to forge ahead with the same zeal as the ultimate aim is to reach zero number of cases and sustain it.

On this occasion, Gates said that today 16 million people are walking who would have been paralysed if they had not been protected against polio, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of public health workers.

“Funding and commitment will ensure that in the future no child will ever again suffer from the consequences of this incurable but preventable disease,” he said. He also said that while polio continues to exist anywhere in the world children everywhere remain at risk.

“Each year, the GPEI reaches 450 million children to vaccinate them against the virus in polio endemic countries and elsewhere and maintains disease surveillance system in more than 70 countries to find and stop every last virus,” he said.

He also stated that if the efforts against polio are stopped now, experts say that within a decade there would be 200,000 new cases of polio every year.

“What’s so impressive about the polio programme is that through persistence and innovation it has risen to the challenge, again and again,” he said.

Gates said that it is this talent for generating new ideas, building on lessons learned, and adapting to new circumstances that makes me optimistic we will get to zero. The importance of routine immunisation was also discussed at length during the meeting with Senator Farooq sharing efforts to upscale routine immunisation against nine preventable diseases in Pakistan.