Ghana, Nigeria to benefit from Japanese grant to fight polio

Ghana and Nigeria will benefit from a US $28-million Japanese grant to UNICEF to eradicate polio in six target countries worldwide, the UN Children's Fund said on Thursday. "This donation is another indication that the world is firmly resolved to bring the scourge of polio to an end. The Japanese Government is showing the kind of leadership this effort needs," Carol Bellamy, the UNICEF Executive Director, said. The grant will pay for vaccines, cold chain facilities, logistics, training and for public education in the six endemic countries, among them Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India and Sudan . The agency will also organise national immunization days and will need "massive grassroots volunteer efforts" to ensure oral polio vaccines reach every home in the target countries. The six target countries, UNICEF said, were "among the 30 priority countries where the disease continued to threaten millions of children with paralysis and death". It hopes to declare the world polio-free by 2005. Partners in the UNICEF project are the World Health Organisation, Rotary International, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the United Nations Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Bank. Other donor governments include Britain the United States and The Netherlands.