Vaccine-derived polio has been found in wastewater in New York and London in recent months, prompting renewed fears about the largely-eliminated disease.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced Sunday it will donate $1.2 billion to help eradicate wild polio in the two remaining countries—Pakistan and Afghanistan—where the virus is endemic and prevent new strains of the virus from emerging, months after New York reported its first vaccine-derived polio case in nearly a decade.
370 million. That’s how many children GPEI hopes to vaccinate against polio every year from 2022 to 2026, the Gates Foundation said Sunday.
The ten-figure donation comes after samples of poliovirus were found in both the state of New York and London, leading officials to monitor for cases and ramp up calls for vaccination. The cases are believed to be from vaccine-derived polio: People who are vaccinated with live poliovirus can shed it in their stool, where it can spread through wastewater, mutate and then infect others who come into contact. New York declared an emergency last month after the virus was found in a fourth county in addition to New York City, and the state began monitoring wastewater after a vaccine-derived case of polio caused paralysis in a 20-year-old unvaccinated man in Rockland County.
