GENEVA, Switzerland, Jan. 15 (UPI) -- Polio should be extinct within 12 months, representatives from the six remaining polio-endemic countries said Thursday at a conference in Geneva.
Ministers of Health from Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Niger, Nigeria and Pakistan announced a plan to immunize 250 million children multiple times in a series of massive polio immunization campaigns in 2004.
Data presented at the conference show the polio virus remains in only a few isolated pockets. Aggressive new vaccination programs offer an unprecedented opportunity to eradicate the disease that once paralyzed thousands of children each year, conference members said.
Health ministers in Geneva said after an international investment of $3 billion over 15 years and the successful engagement of more than 200 countries and 20 million volunteers, polio could be the first disease of the 21st century to be eradicated.
Speaking from Delhi, India's minister of health said: "We have a unique window of opportunity in which to end polio forever. We will seize this opportunity by reaching each and every child with vaccine. ... There is no room in India's future for polio."
