UN agencies inducted into Polio Hall of Fame

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UN World Health Organization (WHO) have been inducted into the Polio Hall of Fame for their efforts to rid the world of the disease.

The two UN agencies, along with Rotary International and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which were also inducted, spearhead the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), which is the world’s largest, internationally-coordinated public health project to date.

That partnership was created in 1988 when WHO’s annual assembly of Member States agreed on a global goal to stamp out polio. At that time, the disease was endemic in more than 125 nations across five continents, paralyzing over 1,000 children every day.

Since the Initiative’s founding, more than two billion children worldwide have been immunized against polio with the cooperation of over 200 countries and 20 million volunteers.

Now, polio is endemic in only four countries and fewer than 1,500 cases have been reported so far this year around the world.

The Hall of Fame in the US state of Georgia is part of the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation, which was founded by former US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1927.