Gates’ gift to upgrade polio vaccine welcomed by UN agencies

Grants totalling $10 million from the Gates Foundation will allow the distribution of a polio vaccine in Egypt that tackles a stubborn form of the virus in the ongoing campaign to eradicate the crippling disease globally, the United Nations public heath and children’s organizations said today.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) welcomed the donation, which brought the Gates Foundation’s contribution to polio eradication to $85 million.

Egypt has eliminated poliovirus types 2 and 3 and now must boost the population’s immunity to type 1 by using monovalent oral polio vaccine type-1 (mOPV1), which is scheduled to be developed, licensed and introduced in France, WHO and UNICEF said.

Despite setbacks, polio is on target to be the first disease wiped out this century and the second disease done away with through human effort, the first being smallpox.