Foreign Minister Bob Carr joined the 2013 Young Australian of the Year Akram Azimi, UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors and the Hon Julie Bishop MP at The Global Citizen Gathering held on the lawns of Parliament House on Tuesday to reinforce Australia's support to polio eradication.
The event was co-hosted by UNICEF and the Global Poverty Project to celebrate the incredible progress towards ridding the world of polio. Australia has played a major role in eradicating polio in our own region, and now we are helping to finish the job gloabally.
Polio is a highly infectious, viral disease that attacks the nervous system. One in 200 infected children suffers from paralysis and sometimes death. Anyone can contract the disease, but children under five years of age are most vulnerable.
Even though polio has been eradicated in most of the world today, it still remains endemic in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria where security and access issues, weak health systems and complex cultural and social issues make it hard to reach and immunize vulnerable children in the poorest communities.
'Many health issues demand our attention – and there's a risk the world could become complacent about like - polio, an 'almost eradicated' disease, and give it lower priority. But we can't reduce our efforts when eradication of this disease is within reach' Senator Carr said.
'Australia commends the initiative of Bill Gates, the UN Secretary General and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi in convening in convening a Global Vaccine Summit in April in Abu Dhabi. The Summit will include the launch of an Endgame Strategy to eradicate polio by 2018. Australia is proud to be a partner in this final push to polio eradication'.
The Australian Government is committed to the global effort to eradicate polio. At the 2011 Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Perth, Prime Minister Gillard announced Australia would contribute $50 million to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative over a four year period. Australia's support will be used to help purchase vaccines and to monitor and respond to polio outbreaks.
Global collaboration has helped reduce polio cases by 99.9 per cent since 1988; from 350,000 cases per year to less than 250 cases in 2012. The last known case of polio in Australia was reported in 1972. We now stand on the verge of eradicating polio forever. If successful this will after smallpox, be just the second human disease in history to be completely wiped out.