Abuja, 3 December 2002 -- The African Region of the World Health Organization (WHO) made "excellent progress" in the global polio eradication drive between 1999 and 2002, according to a report released Tuesday by the WHO Regional Office for Africa (AFRO) in Abuja, Nigeria. 
"The Polio Eradication Initiative has moved from a period of growth (1999 - 2001) to (one of) consolidation in 2002", Dr. Olusegun Babaniyi of the Vaccine Preventable Diseases Unit at AFRO told the ongoing 10th meeting of the Task Force on Immunization (TFI) in Africa, which opened in the Nigerian capital, Monday.

Dr. Babaniyi stated that "good political commitment" was evident at all levels in the Region, although large numbers of children were being missed in polio-endemic countries. Nevertheless, he added, certification and laboratory containment activities were strengthened.

Dr. Babaniyi stated that much of the success achieved was due to the successful organization of synchronized National Immunization Days (NIDs) in West and Central Africa.

In 2001, at least 80 million children in 16 countries in West Africa were vaccinated while another 22 million children were reached in nine countries in Central Africa between July 2001 and January 2002.

In his presentation to the meeting, Dr. Babaniyi affirmed that polio-endemic countries in the African Region dropped from 17 in 1999 to an all-time low of three in 2002. "This is clearly encouraging", he said, while admitting that important technical challenges remained in Nigeria, Niger, Angola and Ethiopia, where serious redemptive work still needed to be done.

Dr. Babaniyi explained that although the expenditure of $500,000,000 in the polio eradication effort was demonstrative of Partners' support for the Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI), shrinking financial contribution for the effort in 2002 was a cause for concern.

"The shrinking financial gap is critical to the Polio Eradication Initiative", he said. "Failure to obtain the needed funds on schedule will result in the need for additional funds in the future to finish the job".

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