Polio Bulletin (Year 40, 51-52) - 13 December 2025
|
Polio Highlight 2025 – A Year that Tested Us and Prepared Us to Finish the Job End-of-year message from Dr Jamal Ahmed, Director, Polio Eradication, WHO, and Chair of the Strategy Committee of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative As 2025 draws to a close, I want to begin by first thanking the millions of health workers, vaccinators, surveillance officers, laboratory scientists, social mobilizers, and community volunteers who carried polio eradication forward during what was a difficult year. They did this often under the most difficult circumstances. I also wish to thank governments, donors, civil society organizations, and community leaders including women leaders, whose commitments sustained this effort at a time of profound global uncertainty. And thank you to parents and caregivers everywhere, who chose to protect their children and, in doing so, helped protect the world. […] Looking ahead to 2026. Polio eradication is a promise that geography, income, and circumstance will not determine who is protected from preventable disease. In 2025, the world showed that even in a fragmented global landscape, cooperation remains possible and progress remains within reach. As we enter 2026, let us take a moment to reflect on what was achieved in 2025 and return with a simple commitment. TO END POLIO FOR GOOD. To every member of our staff and every partner around the world, you carried this work through uncertainty and personal sacrifice, with professionalism, compassion, and grace. The credibility of this programme rests on you. Let us carry the discipline, unity, and resolve of this year [2025] into the next. Let us continue, together until polio is ended everywhere. |