Shot in the arm in fight against polio

New funding could help to eradicate the terrible scourge of a preventable disease. And Scots are in the battle�s front line, discovers Alison Chiesa.

They call them the "sand crawlers" - the children in Africa and Asia whose bodies are so broken by polio that they can only move around on their bellies. While the dark days of the disease as a widespread waster of limbs - and at times a killer - have virtually been consigned to history in the western world, it continues to blight the lives of children in Africa and Asia.

Although cases have diminished in recent years even on those continents, thanks largely to the work of humanitarian organisations, health experts suggest that if the disease is not entirely eradicated, it could spread across borders and rise to 10 million instances in the next 40 years, negating the world's £4.5bn investment in the initiative.

Last night, plans to wipe out the menace received a major boost as the global health community committed around £455m in an aggressive push finally to wipe out the virus which invades the nervous system and can cause paralysis in a matter of hours.

Around £74m of the new funding will come from Rotary International which, since 1986, has raised more than £545m to eradicate the disease, as a spearheading partner under the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI). The initiative has reduced the number of polio cases by more than 99% over the past 20 years, from 350,000 in 1988 to 1600 in 2008.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has told the Rotarians that they will match the £74m with a grant of £187m. A further £100m will come from the UK government and £94m from the German government.

The funding announcement was made in San Diego, US, at the Rotary International Assembly's annual leadership conference. The organisation comprises 1.2 million business and professional leaders worldwide, and its chief role in the polio campaign is fundraising, advocacy and mobilising volunteers.

John Kenny, a retired lawyer from Linlithgow, and incoming president of the organisation, told The Herald: "Every Rotarian throughout the world has been working towards the goal of polio eradication for many years. We have come a long way. But, although we are close to the finish, the hardest work still lies ahead."

He added: "We have been saying for many years we are going to eliminate polio. With the funding announcements made today, there will soon come a time when we will be able to say with confidence and pride that we have rid the world of the terrible disease. And we will do it."

It was 21 years ago that Rotary International began its battle to eliminate the disease. The money raised so far has immunised more than two billion children.

However, polio remains endemic in Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan. In Nigeria, low vaccination rates have allowed the virus to surge, while the war on terror makes reaching every child difficult in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Despite continued vaccination efforts, the virus remains stubbornly entrenched in India. Last year, cases were also reported in 11 other African countries as well as Burma and Nepal.

Other organisations involved in helping to fight the disease globally include the World Health Organisation (Who) and United Nations health agencies.

Edinburgh-born Dr Bob Scott, chairman of the international polio plus committee for Rotary International, said: "This funding will be a tremendous stimulus to get on and get the job finished. We are already 99% there."

The polio represented by the final 1% is the most difficult to prevent owing to such factors as geographical isolation, poor public infrastructure, armed conflict and cultural barriers. With the new funding, if all goes well, the disease could be eradicated in some areas within two years.

Dr Scott, a retired GP, who now lives in Canada, added: "The vaccine costs around 40p per child, with added costs for transportation. It is worse when both lower and upper limbs are affected. In poor countries, children affected like this are called sand crawlers' and they have a particularly bad time. Since we started our work, the number of sand crawlers has drastically reduced. Once you get polio, there is no cure. The only way to get rid of it is to prevent any child from having it. Acute cases get so bad that the sufferer can't breathe and dies."

Bill Gates, who has stepped down as full-time chairman of Microsoft to concentrate on his charity work, told the conference last night: "Rotarians, government leaders and health professionals have made a phenomenal commitment to get us to a point at which polio afflicts only a small number of the world's children. However, complete elimination of the polio virus is difficult, and will continue to be difficult for a number of years. Rotary, in particular, has inspired my own personal commitment to get deeply involved in achieving eradication."

In accepting the Gates challenge Jonathan Majiyagbe, chair of the Rotary Foundation, said the funding partnership would inspire other polio eradication allies, both current and new, to ramp up their support. "With the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we are on the brink of eradicating one of the most feared diseases in the world," Mr Majiyagbe said.

"This shared commitment of Rotary and the Gates Foundation should encourage governments and non-governmental organisations to ensure that resources and the will of the world are available to end polio once and for all."

Also speaking at the conference was Douglas Alexander, UK International Development Secretary, who called the funding pledges a massive boost in the battle to rid the world of the scourge of polio.

He added: "We have already significantly increased the number of vaccinations for those people most at risk, and there has been real progress in reducing the number of new infections. Now is the time to make the final push to eradicate polio and this investment will ensure future generations in the developing world will no longer have their lives blighted by this crippling disease.

"In today's testing global economic climate, it is crucial we don't forget the health problems suffered by the world's poorest people, problems which we were able to wipe out in the developed world long ago."

Despite the new injection of funds, the campaign still needs £248m to get through 2010. The Who estimates about another $2bn would be needed until 2013, when it hopes polio will have been wiped out.

"G8 countries pledged repeatedly to take all necessary steps to eradicate polio," said Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, German Minister for Economic Co-operation and Development. "Germany has contributed significantly to living up to this commitment. We urge other countries to join us in closing the funding gap and ensuring that health workers have the support they need to protect the world's children from polio."

Two deadlines to get rid of polio by 2000 and 2005 were missed. Dr Bruce Aylward, Who's director of polio eradication, said many countries hoped to certify polio was gone by 2013. The last recorded case of polio in the UK was 1982, and the last imported case occurred in 1993.

Rotary, a volunteer organisation, was founded in 1905 in the US and now operates in more than 200 countries. In Britain, and Ireland there are about 58,000 members in more than 1840 clubs. There are 202 clubs in Scotland and 6765 members. The first Scottish club was founded in Glasgow in 1912.

In the spotlight

AN exhibition portraying the plight of polio sufferers will come to Scotland next month. The photographic display runs as part of Rotary International's End Polio Now campaign. It will be in the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, from February 25 for two weeks.

Major epidemics of polio began to occur in Europe in the 1880s. Soon after, epidemics appeared in the US. By 1910, much of the world experienced a dramatic increase in cases and epidemics were frequent.

These epidemics provided the impetus for a "Great Race" towards the development of a vaccine. The vaccines developed by Jonas Salk in 1952 and Albert Sabin in 1962 are credited with reducing the number of cases per year from many hundreds of thousands to under 2000. Enhanced vaccination efforts led by the Rotary International, Who and Unicef could result in global eradication of the disease.

Famous victims of the disease

Ian Dury: musician.
Was left crippled after contracting polio at the age of seven. He went on to become a Unicef ambassador, promoting polio vaccination campaigns.

Francis Ford Coppola: film director.
Contracted polio at the age of nine and spent more than a year quarantined in his bedroom. It is during this confinement that his imagination took hold, and he began performing plays for his siblings.