Remarks by the Regional Director, Dr Matshidiso Moeti
Honourable Minister of Health of Togo and Honourable Chair of the Regional Committee, Professor Moustafa Mijiyawa,
Honourable Ministers of Health,
Heads of delegations,
The Polio Oversight Board Chair and partners of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative – Rotary International, United States CDC, UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance,
Director-General of WHO, Dr Tedros,
Our moderators: Professor Rose Leke, who is the Chairperson of the Africa Regional Commission for Certification of Poliovirus Eradication and Dr Djamila Cabral, the WHO Representative in Angola,
Distinguished health workers, polio survivors, colleagues, guests, friends, ladies and gentlemen,
Exactly one year ago to the day, we celebrated the emotional and historic feat of the WHO African Region being certified free of wild poliovirus and I remember that we stood up and danced and watched each other do so remotely. I am not quite sure I remember such dancing by Honourable Ministers at another Regional Committee.
I am pleased that the Region remains free of this form of the disease, knowing that this certification occurred just before governments had to mount rapid efforts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
After the pause in polio activities due to COVID-19 restrictions, close to 100 million children in 21 countries in the Region have been vaccinated since the campaigns resumed in July last year.
My heartfelt thanks and appreciation go to all the Heads of State, Ministers and their staff, to our partners, to community leaders, frontline health workers, caregivers, community volunteers and individuals, who contributed to protecting so many children, so quickly, during the most challenging and uncertain times.
Today, I also pay special homage to the frontline workers in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali and South Sudan who lost their lives in the fight against polio during this resumption of activities between 2020 to 2021. They paid the highest price for our collective noble cause.
So, finishing polio once and for all remains a top priority. Since 2018, twenty-three countries in our Region have experienced outbreaks of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus 2, due to persistent low immunization coverage and outbreak response campaigns whose quality needs to improve.
The novel oral polio vaccine is a key additional tool in stopping these outbreaks, and I would like to congratulate the 10 Member States that have already met all the requirements to rollout this vaccine.
Close to 40 million children in six African countries have already received two doses of the nOPV2 vaccine without major safety issues.
As was mentioned at the World Health Assembly, we should be proud that the African Region was the first of all WHO regions to rollout this vaccine.
For me, this once again shows how committed, you our Member States are, to protecting children from getting infected by the virus.
Honourable Ministers, dear partners and colleagues:
Over the last few months, my colleagues and I have been in communication with each one of you working with our partners in the polio eradication initiative either by letter or in virtual teleconferences on the importance of using this new vaccine, among other strategies, to finish polio once and for all in our Region.
Unfortunately, today we have to share the disappointing news that there may not be enough vaccines for our countries to use for outbreak response and the synchronized campaigns planned for later this year, at least not all of them.
This is mainly because the vaccine manufacturer based in Indonesia has had to cut back operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, another impact of this pandemic. However, I am assured that efforts are underway to identify another manufacturer and to negotiate with the current manufacturer to continue to produce the forecasted requirement.
I and our colleagues will continue to advocate for prioritization of the African Region in the vaccine allocation and distribution and I ask for your support in doing the same, including during WHO governance meetings.
At the technical level, we are working with your ministries to identify the most vulnerable populations where we can implement targeted interventions to boost immunity.
As we continue to implement polio transition, our shared objective is to stop all polioviruses by 2023 and to integrate the polio infrastructure to strengthen broader disease surveillance and outbreak response systems as well as immunization services. I believe my colleagues in the videos have already indicated what diverse support is being provided by the polio infrastructure in our national health systems.
Stopping outbreaks will require an uninterrupted focus on the 10 highest-risk countries in our Region.
I would like to sincerely thank the governments of these countries and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative partners for making the resources available to sustain this concerted effort.
For the remaining 37 countries, we will continue with the transition as has been planned for several years. I am working with my colleagues at WHO headquarters to provide bridge-funding to smoothly integrate the polio infrastructure, particularly with staff, into a broader public health approach.
Your leadership, Honourable Ministers, in mobilizing domestic resources to implement country transition plans, will go a long way towards making sure that the wealth of polio expertise and experience that has been gained, contributes to advancing other health priorities in the future.
In closing, I’d like to say that together, we have achieved a monumental public health milestone, and we are close to stopping all forms of polio. By maintaining our focus and working together in this last mile, we can ensure our success becomes a legacy of better health for future generations.
I thank you very much for having joined us at this special event and thank you for all your hard work towards our common duty.