Leading international donor agencies on Friday expressed full confidence in the country’s capacity to achieve polio eradication in the near future. The meeting of key international donors and partners including representatives of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), Rotary International, Japanese government, Germany, Italy and Canada, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as World Health Organisation (WHO), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Central Depository Company (CDC) was called by the newly nominated Prime Minister’s Focal Person on Polio Eradication Babar Bin Atta. “Pakistan has made remarkable progress in protecting every child from polio which is otherwise a devastating, yet vaccine preventable disease. The number of polio cases fell from almost 20,000 each year in the early 1990s to only eight last year and four so far this year,” National Emergency Operations Centre Coordinator Dr Rana Muhammad Safdar said. “Despite a significant case decline, the presence of the virus in the sewerage water of urban settings indicate that the job is not over yet. We are working hard plug the immunity gaps by addressing the remaining challenges in core reservoirs,” he added. “The government and PM Imran Khan are fully committed to curb the transmission of polio in Pakistan,” said Focal Person Babar Bin Atta. “We are not only going to sustain the gains made over the past years, but also to accelerate the progress by focusing on reaching the repeatedly missed children in next campaigns, especially during the upcoming winter,” he added. International donors and partners present at the meeting congratulated Babar Atta on his appointment and appreciated the government’s commitment to hit the virus hard during 2018-19 low transmission season and to end polio in Pakistan once and for all. “We are proud of our partnership with the high performing country programme and will be diligently working with the new government to eradicate polio from Pakistan,” said Dr Umar Mir of IDB. Representatives of WHO, UNICEF, Rotary, Japan International Cooperation Agency, CDC, Bill Melinda & Gates Foundation, USAID as well as the governments of Canada, Germany and Japan also expressed similar sentiments. Strengthening of routine immunisation, focusing safe water and sanitation and addressing malnutrition in core reservoirs were among other identified priorities to achieve and sustain the virus interruption. The Pakistan Polio Eradication Initiative is led by the government and financed by a wide range of public and private donors. “We are grateful to all our international partners and donors for their unwavering support over the years. We will do whatever it takes to eradicate polio from Pakistan as soon as possible,” Atta said. Published in Daily Times, October 13th 2018.