Remarks by WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti
Thank you very much, Chairperson:
Honourable Ministers, dear delegates and colleagues, I would like to start first of all by congratulating the governments, the partners, the communities, including frontline workers, survivors and caregivers, for your support and efforts in kicking wild poliovirus out of the WHO African Region. We celebrated this historic milestone in August, following more than 25 years of solidarity, dedication and an incredible effort to reach every community.
We still have work to do, to finish polio once and for all. Sixteen African countries, it’s already been said, have experienced circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 outbreaks in 2020 and responding to these outbreaks has been a challenge due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.
I am very happy that the Honourable Ministers of the countries concerned, have led the charge in resuming response activities and already, since July, more than 35 million children have been vaccinated – this is very encouraging news. With the availability of an additional tool, the novel oral vaccine type 2, and improvement in the quality of outbreak response measures, my colleagues and I are confident that these outbreaks will be stopped in a timely manner.
The capacities built in the polio response – the hundreds of staff on the ground, the expertise, the innovations – and the mobilized committed communities have been immensely valuable in response to COVID-19 and to other health issues. We are now concentrating on how to transition the polio infrastructure to national health systems for universal health coverage, particularly routine immunization and emergency preparedness and response. This is critical in the African Region and I ask for the collaboration of Member States and partners to transition polio assets in a sustainable manner in the Region.
Finally, I also would like to follow my colleague Michel Zaffran, and call the attention of our Member States and partners, to the call to action by WHO and UNICEF last Friday for polio and measles outbreak response and recovery. It is very important, both for countries to safely re-boost immunization services in the context of COVID-19 and for partners to ensure that the urgently-needed financial resources are rapidly made available.
I thank you very much Chair, for the opportunity.