POLIO NEWS - June 2023
 download PDF POLIO NEWS June 2023 Dear polio eradication supporter, This past month featured several important moments for advocacy and commitment to polio eradication around the world. At Soccer Aid for UNICEF, in Manchester, United Kingdom, celebrities, fans, and global health leaders came together to raise US$ 18 million for UNICEF—funds that are critical to help provide vaccines to children against deadly diseases like polio. In Kinshasa, at the DRC Forum on Immunization & Polio Eradication in Africa, leaders and partners in the WHO African Region renewed their commitments to sustainable financing to improve immunization coverage and end polio. Looking ahead, global leaders will continue to advocate for polio eradication efforts at events like the Women Deliver Conference in Kigali, Rwanda, and the WHO African Regional Committee meeting in Botswana in August. Keeping government commitments strong will be critical to protecting more children from this preventable disease. Protecting polio vaccines In order to deliver safe polio vaccines to children, each vaccine must be kept in perfect condition. In Mozambique, high quality cold chain systems are protecting these life-saving vaccines by ensuring they are safely stored, transported, and delivered in the required temperature-controlled environments. Read on to learn how polio workers take great care to ensure vaccines stay cold and can reach children safely. Flight to end polio Rotarians Peter Teahen and John Ockenfels are on an exciting trip, flying over 25 000 miles around the world, making 39 landings in 21 countries, including Pakistan, to bring awareness to the fight to end polio. On their journey, they are raising money for Rotary’s PolioPlus Program to help make sure all children can access not just polio vaccines, but also the medical treatments, vitamins, and more that will help them to live a healthy life. Learn more and track their journey in real time! Leaders in polio eradication Keeping children protected against paralysis would be impossible without the trailblazers in the journey towards eradication. Dr Humayun Asghar developed initiatives in Egypt in the 1990s around early laboratory testing and environmental surveillance, helping ensure the virus is tracked and stopped.
 Raquelina Mazuze prepared and mobilized her community in Mozambique, following an outbreak of WPV1, for a vaccination drive set to protect nearly 4 million children.
 Also working to keep her community safe is Thongbotho Mphoyakgosi who learned how to test wastewater samples for polio with the goal of ensuring her home country of Botswana one day has an operationalized national public health laboratory. We thank each of these expert leaders for their invaluable contributions to the effort to end polio. POLIO IN NUMBERSWild Poliovirus in 2023 (2022)* Global Total: 6 (13) Circulating Vaccine Derived Poliovirus in 2023 (2022)* Global Total: 127 (157) *Data as of 28 June 2023. Numbers in brackets represent data at this time in 2022. Breakdown by country Polio this week DONOR UPDATESUNICEF is very grateful to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea for the generous contribution of 3.375 billion Korean Won in support of GPEI’s polio outbreak response activities towards achieving Goal Two of the Polio Eradication Strategy 2022-2026 of stopping circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV) transmission and preventing outbreaks in non-endemic countries. PHOTO OF THE MONTH Trained vaccinator Rossana Macumbe ensures polio vaccines stay cold before they reach children. © WHO AFRO            |
