Global leaders pledge $2.5 billion for polio eradication at World Health Summit

Subject: International Organisation

Context:

Recently, Global leaders at the World Health summit have committed to donating $2.54 billion to eradicating polio.
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation pledged $1.2 billion to the largest international public health initiative, Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI)

What is Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI):

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative is the largest public-private partnershipcreated in 1988
It is led by national governments with six partners:The World Health Organization (WHO),Rotary International, The US Centers for Disease Control Prevention (CDC), The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF),Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and
What is Poliomyelitis:
It is a disabling and life-threatening disease caused by the poliovirus.
Poliovirus is very contagious and spreads through person-to-person It lives in an infected person’s throat and intestines and can contaminate food and water in unsanitary conditions.
The virus can infect a person’s spinal cord, causing paralysis.

What is the current status of the disease:

Wild poliovirus is endemic in just two countries Pakistan and Afghanistan.
However, after just six cases were recorded in 2021,29 cases have been recorded so far this year, including a small number of new detections in southeast Africa linked to a strain originating in Pakistan.
Additionally, outbreaks of cVDPV, variants of the poliovirus that can emerge in places where not enough people have been immunized, continue to spread across parts of Africa, Asia and Europe, with new outbreaks detected in the United States, Israel and the United Kingdom in recent months.

What is nOPV2:

To better address the evolving risk of type 2 circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV2), GPEI with its partners is deploying an innovative tool i.e novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2).
The vaccine is a modified version of type 2 monovalent OPV (mOPV2)
It is more genetically stable and less likely to be associated with the emergence of cVDPV2 in low immunity settings and provides a comparable protection against poliovirus