14 August 2013 - As part of the international emergency effort to complete global polio eradication, the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) has disbursed US$ 32.6 million to help ensure that no child in Pakistan ever again dies or is permanently paralyzed by this debilitating disease.

Pakistan is one of only three countries in the world which has never eliminated polio, posing a continuing serious health risk for children in that country as well as other Member States of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). This disbursement, the first of US$ 227 million that the IDB has approved for polio eradication efforts in Pakistan, was made through the World Health Organization (WHO) on 3 August 2013.

With this contribution, the IDB will help to train and support over 200 000 health workers and volunteers to reach 33 million children in Pakistan with the life-saving oral polio vaccine (OPV), to strengthen immunization services for other vaccine-preventable diseases, and to enhance disease surveillance across the country.

WHO expresses its appreciation to the IDB and the OIC as key partners in the intensified global polio eradication effort. WHO commend the commitment of the new federal and provincial governments in Pakistan to put their eradication effort on an emergency footing, thereby ensuring that by the end of 2014 children everywhere are protected from polio, forever.