Your Excellency President Muhammadu Buhari, President of Nigeria,
Your Excellency the RC Chair, Dr Jacqueline Lydia Mikolo,
Professor Rose Leke,
Mr Aliko Dangote,
Mr Bill Gates,
My Regional Director, Dr Moeti,
Excellencies, friends and colleagues,
Today is a day of celebration, and a day of hope.
Today we come together to rejoice over an historic public health success - the certification of wild poliovirus eradication in the African Region.
On behalf of the Polio Oversight Board, our partners at Rotary, CDC, UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Gavi, and all donors and partners, I congratulate the people and governments of Africa for your leadership and determination.
Your success is the success of the world.
None of us could have done this alone. This landmark achievement has only been possible because of the power of partnership; the power of solidarity.
Since 1996, almost 9 billion polio vaccines have been delivered in Africa, up to 1.8 million cases of wild polio have been averted, and up to 180,000 lives have been saved.
The substantial investments we have all made in defeating polio have delivered a rich reward.
And although wild polio has been driven out of Africa, those investments will continue to bear fruit for many other health needs.
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative has helped to deliver vitamin A, bed nets and deworming tablets, and support for outbreaks including Ebola.
The COVID-19 pandemic is once again demonstrating that polio staff are an essential public health workforce that can be quickly mobilized to serve the most vulnerable communities.
Local health workers are the backbone of the response, but we’re pleased that polio workers from WHO, UNICEF, the Polio STOP program and CDC have been able to support the response to COVID-19 in 36 African countries.
These personnel are conducting surveillance, contact tracing, risk communication, data management and reporting, as well as preparedness and coordination.
The polio laboratory network, with 16 laboratories in 15 countries, is now dedicating 50% of its capacity to testing for COVID-19.
Hundreds of tests are done each day using polio testing machines in Algeria, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa.
The polio programme continues to lead in engaging trusted voices on COVID-19, reaching and sensitizing health professionals and community influencers on the prevention and detection of COVID -19, while providing them with protective equipment and screening tools.
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My brothers and sisters,
The end of wild polio in Africa is a great day. But as we all know, it’s not the end of polio.
Sixteen countries still face outbreaks of vaccine-derived poliovirus, and we have a hard road ahead to eradicate wild poliovirus from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
As long as polio persists anywhere, it’s a threat everywhere.
We still have a lot of work to do to finish the job of consigning polio to the history books.
We must continue to mobilize funds;
to strengthen health systems, especially for essential immunizations;
to train health workers;
to boost outreach services;
and to listen to community concerns to counter misinformation.
Yes, all of this costs money.
But in the end, money spent eradicating polio is not a cost, it’s an investment;
An investment in a healthier and more productive future, in which polio no longer robs children and prevents them from becoming everything they could be.
A future without polio may have once seemed impossible.
But in the words of Nelson Mandela, when people are determined, they can overcome anything.
Thank you again. Merci beaucoup. It’s such a great honour joining you, being from the same continent, from Africa. I join my sister in saying how proud we are to see this day.
Thank you so much again.