Lieber Werner Hoyer,
Dear Dr Tedros,
Dear Catherine Russell,
The global campaign against polio shows the power of science, but it also shows the power of our unity. Since 1988, when the WHO launched the global eradication effort, the number of polio cases has dropped by more than 99%. 16 million people have been saved from paralysis. And polio eradication is now finally at hand. But the final stretch can be the most challenging. So I am glad that today we are launching a new partnership to get through this last mile so that humanity can wipe polio off the face of the Earth, just like we did with smallpox in the 1970s.
Today, the European Union and the EIB, together with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, are committing more than EUR 1 billion to global health efforts. Half of this EUR 1 billion will go to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, dear Dr Tedros, to support the WHO in finishing what you have started. This will cover polio vaccinations for nearly 370 million children annually. Together, we can end the transmission of wild polio already this year, and defeat it completely by the end of the next decade. So let us get it done.
The other half of our EUR 1 billion pledge will be invested in making health systems stronger in countries and regions that need it most, for example for local vaccine production and manufacturing. We have learnt our lessons from COVID-19. Every continent should be able to produce the vaccines and medicines it needs. It is a matter of fairness, and it is key to defeat global health threats.
This is why our Global Gateway investment plan is already investing in local vaccine production around the world. Global Gateway has more than EUR 1 billion for Africa's vaccine manufacturing. And the results on the ground are beginning to show. I visited last year the MADIBA vaccine manufacturing project in Dakar. It is progressing well. And soon, a similar facility will open in Kigali, Rwanda. We are also supporting vaccine production and manufacturing at scale in Latin America and the Caribbean. But it is essential that we all join forces on this. The road to large-scale manufacturing is very complex. It requires factories but also training for thousands of workers all across the value chain as well as health sector reforms.
So we need to partner. And we need to keep up the good work that has begun in the wake of the pandemic. This new partnership of old friends – if I may say so – shows that our focus on global health continues. Together, we will end polio. Together, we will support all continents to produce the vaccines and medicines they need. Because it should not matter where you are born and where you live. Health is a universal human right.
