Gates praises UAE efforts to eradicate polio

Abu Dhabi: Bill Gates, founder and co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hailed in an article published in a number of Arab and international newspapers, the efforts of the UAE and His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces to eradicate polio.

Gates pointed to the generous donations made by the UAE to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation in 2012, where it has allocated $33 million (Dh121 million) to immunise children in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

He also praised the contribution made by the UAE, under the guidance of Shaikh Mohammad, for the generous donations to eradicate polio in Pakistan and other countries of the world, and its tireless efforts to fight misconceptions that limit the success of immunisation campaigns, which have resulted in the success of UAE’s leadership efforts in northern Pakistan, thanks to the close ties between the peoples of these two countries.

In his article entitled “Gulf Countries at the forefront in improving the lives of poor people”, Gates touched on their future vision for the lives of people in poor countries, which is expected to improve at an accelerated and unprecedented pace in the next 15 years in the field of health care, the low mortality rate among children and the elimination of more infectious diseases.

The UAE has also immunised millions of Pakistani children with more than 28.8 million polio vaccines in January and February 2015 as part of the second phase of the Emirates Polio Campaign launched under the directives of President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan on an initiative by Shaikh Mohammad.

The effort is part of the UAE government’s 2013 pledge of Dh440 million to support global efforts to eradicate polio by 2018, said the UAE Pakistan Assistance Programme (UAE-PAP) in its announcement of the results of polio immunisation drive for the first two months of the current year.

A total of 13,826,386 polio vaccine doses were given to Pakistani children aged under five years in January in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Sindh and the tribal provinces. In February, children in these regions were given 14,977,824 additional doses of the vaccine in February, said the administration of the UAE-PAP.

A third does of the polio vaccine will be given in March to the children in the targeted Pakistani regions as part of massive immunisation drive being carried in cooperation with the Pakistan army, ministry of health and regional governments and World Health Organisation (WHO).

The UAE-PAP polio campaign used more than 10,000 teams using health care centres and mobile units for remote villages, refugee camps and border areas.