The partnership already faces a $2.4 billion shortfall to 2029, as it accepted last year that it would take longer, and cost more, to eradicate the disease than hoped.
WHO warns US funding cuts could stall global polio eradication
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
A senior World Health Organization official has warned that the eradication of polio as a global health threat could be delayed unless US funding cuts, potentially amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars over several years, are reversed.
The WHO works with groups such as UNICEF and the Gates Foundation to end polio, News.Az reports citing foreign media.
The planned withdrawal of the United States from WHO has impacted efforts, including stopping collaboration with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Last week, UNICEF's polio grant was terminated as the State Department cut 90% of USAID’s grants worldwide to align aid with President Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ policy.
In total, the partnership is missing $133 million from the U.S. that was expected this year, said Hamid Jafari, director of the polio eradication programme for the WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean region. The area includes two countries where a wild form of polio is spreading: Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“If the funding shortfall continues, it may potentially delay eradication, it may lead to more children getting paralyzed,” he said, adding that the longer it took to end polio, the more expensive it would be.
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