Gates says polio eradication in Pakistan possible in coming years

Bill Gates said during a visit to Pakistan on Thursday that polio could be eradicated in the country in the next few years. 

“We’re not done, but we’re certainly in by far the best situation we’ve ever been in,” Gates said, according to Reuters. 

Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries where polio still circulates, and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, a project that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is involved with, has worked with governments and international groups to eliminate the disease, Reuters added.

During his trip, Gates reportedly met with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and, in a press conference joined by the country’s special assistant to the prime minister on health, Faisal Sultan, the Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist said that efforts in both countries were connected.

“I think the steps taken in Pakistan during 2022 will probably set us up to finish polio eradication,” Gates said.

He cautioned, however, that “Afghanistan is a little bit of a question mark because that’s a more complex situation.”

Last August, the Taliban took over Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul, sparking health- and economic-related strife throughout the country. But Gates noted that vaccination rates were up in Afghanistan this year.

Afghanistan had four wild polio cases in 2021 and one this year. In Pakistan, no children have been paralyzed from the illness for more than a year, but in December, polio was detected in samples from sewage from the country’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Reuters noted.