Sidney Brown-Gates Foundation
Posted by Gary O'Rielly on Jan 30, 2017
Our guest last Friday was Sidney Brown, Associate Program Officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Sidney primary focus is on monitoring and evaluating work in Pakistan. Previously she was the Secretariat for Global Polio Eradication Initiative's Polio Oversight Board and is the currently the Secretariat for the Pakistan Task Team. She travels to Pakistan frequently to see the results of the program's efforts there.
Polio Eradication - In 1985, Rotary launched its PolioPlus program, the first initiative to tackle global eradication through massive vaccination of children. Rotary has contributed more than $1.5 billion and countless volunteer hours to immunize more than 2.5 billion children in 122 countries. In 1985 there were 350,000 cases of polio in the world. There were 125 endemic countries. Today there are three
In 1997, Bill and Melinda Gates read an article on rotavirus. In 2000, they officially launched their polio eradication program. An announcement at the Rotary International Convention in Lisbon, Portugal set the stage for a bold new chapter in the partnership between Rotary and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Gates Foundation gave the Rotary Foundation $100 million with the understanding that the Rotary Foundation would raise $200 million. The Gates Foundation will match all donations to Rotary for polio two to one, up to $35 million per year, through 2018. And, Rotary's advocacy efforts have played a major role in decisions by donor governments to contribute more than $7.2 billion to the effort. Currently, polio has been reduced to 35 cases. Today, polio is found only in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
There are two polio vaccines. Oral polio vaccines (OPV) and inactivated polio vaccine (IPV). The World Health Assembly resolution to eradicate polio formed a GPEI partnership with Rotary International, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the United States Centers for Disease Control. There is still work to be done. The challenge continues and funding won't go away until polio is eradicated world wide.