The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), the joint effort including Rotary International, the World Health Organization (WHO), the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), UNICEF and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to eradicate polio, acknowledged today that the “End Game Strategy” scheduled to wrap up in 2018 is about one year behind schedule and will need another $1.5 billion in funding on top of the original budget of $5.5 billion.
The acknowledgement was made officially today during a briefing on the simultaneous global transition from trivalent to bivalent vaccine. There are three strains of polio. The primary tool in fighting polio has been the Sabin trivalent oral vaccine using weakened forms of all three viruses. A global switch across 155 countries still using the trivalent vaccine will occur beginning on April 17 and will wrap up on May 1. The trivalent vaccine will not be used anywhere in the world thereafter.
The switch is possible because there is no type 2 wild p…