Polio eradication: It’s not time to quit, it’s time to recommit

In 1980, the world succeeded in stamping out a disease: smallpox. Accomplishing this task took three key ingredients: an ambitious dream, the resources to fulfill that dream, and strong partnerships. 

Four-and-a-half decades later, the world has come close to conquering another unforgiving disease: polio. The ingredients needed to win this fight are the same. But today’s battlefield is different: we are contending with protracted conflicts, fragile health systems, other disease outbreaks, and highly mobile populations that allow the poliovirus to travel across borders more widely than ever before.

Saudi Arabia is not currently directly affected by polio. But our responsibility does not end at our borders. In a region as interconnected as ours, no country is safe until all countries are polio-free. Polio anywhere is a threat to children everywhere. Protecting the most vulnerable in neighboring countries strengthens the health security of the entire region.

During recent visits to Afghanistan and Pakistan, we saw firsthand the determination of families and health workers to eradicate the disease, and the gratitude of families whose children received the polio vaccine. Encounters like these are powerful reminders that behind every statistic is a child whose life and future we can protect.

It is this recognition of our shared responsibility to safeguard all children, no matter where they live, that underpins the Kingdom’s decision to invest in the global polio eradication effort. It is both a humanitarian duty and a pragmatic investment in stability and security for future generations across the region and beyond.

From the World Health Organization’s perspective, this solidarity also underlines a vital truth: regional health security depends on countries standing together, supporting one another, and ensuring that no community is left behind. Only through such collective responsibility can we finish the job of eradicating polio and prepare our health systems to withstand future threats.

Investments in polio eradication also strengthen health security far beyond polio itself. Trained frontline workers serve not only to vaccinate children but also as first responders in disasters and disease outbreaks. Surveillance teams that monitor polio also detect and respond to other health threats. And administrators and officers trained through the polio program continue to serve as capable public health leaders.

Against this backdrop, the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre stands strong with the WHO in the journey to reach zero polio.

This commitment resonates with KSrelief’s mission — to alleviate suffering and provide relief to vulnerable communities — and with Saudi Arabia’s broader leadership in promoting health across the region.

As KSrelief marks its tenth anniversary, the center has pledged $500 million to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, $300 million of which will support the WHO’s operations. It is one of the largest contributions in the history of the program.

This investment will ensure 370 million children receive polio vaccines every year for the next five years, helping to end wild polio in Pakistan and Afghanistan and to stop outbreaks of variant polioviruses in fragile settings.

Saudi Arabia’s leadership is also visible in protecting the health of millions of pilgrims who travel for Hajj and Umrah each year.

By requiring vaccinations and maintaining strong surveillance around these gatherings, the Kingdom helps safeguard its people and reduces the risk of international spread — an essential contribution to global health security.

This contribution builds on years of Saudi support for health: KSrelief has previously funded polio and measles programs in the Eastern Mediterranean Region including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia and Sudan. These critical investments have saved children’s lives, averted major disease outbreaks, and strengthened health systems in some of the world’s most difficult situations.

Despite these invaluable efforts, polio remains the longest-standing public health emergency of international concern under International Health Regulations — the highest red flag that the WHO can raise to warn of the risk of international spread.

In 1988, when the global eradication initiative was launched, more than 350,000 children were paralyzed by polio every year.

Today, cases are down by more than 99 percent. But as long as the virus survives in a handful of places, it can and will return, as we have seen recently in Gaza.

Eradication is within reach, but it requires sustained commitment. Adequate funding and resources are the lifeblood of this fight. Without them, we risk undoing decades of progress.

This is a decisive moment. Saudi Arabia has stepped forward in solidarity with the world’s children. But we cannot do it alone. Every government, every partner, every donor must play its part.

Now is not the time to quit. It is the time to recommit — to protect every child, strengthen regional and global health security and consign polio to history once and for all.

This call for renewed commitment will also be the focus of a high-level event at the United Nations General Assembly. On Sept. 22, under the banner “United to Finish the Job,” leaders from polio-affected countries, donors and global health partners will gather in New York to reaffirm solidarity and chart the final course to a polio-free world.

Together, we have the power to finish what we started – and to ensure that no child, anywhere, ever suffers from polio again.

• Ziad Memish is an advisor to the Supervisor General of KSrelief for Medical & Humanitarian Research. He is professor of infectious diseases at the College of Medicine in Alfaisal University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; and Adjunct Professor in the Hubert Department of Global Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Georgia, USA.

• Dr Hamid Jafari is the director of polio eradication for the WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean Region. He was formerly the principal deputy director of the Center for Global Health at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, and played a key leadership role supporting CDC’s global public health goals.