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Polio Eradication
In July 1999, the Polio Eradication Team of the CORE Group Partners Project was formed with funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The CORE Group has been awarded $11 million covering seven years for the Polio Eradication Initiative.
The Polio Eradication Initiative coordinates and mobilizes community involvement in mass oral polio vaccine immunization campaigns in high-risk areas and the hardest-to-reach populations of polio-endemic countries. There are a total of 19 active CORE polio projects in Angola, Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Uganda. CARE is one of the polio partner non-governmental organizations in Angola, Bangladesh, India and Nepal.
Mission
The strategy to achieve the CORE Group Polio Partners Project vision includes:
- Building partnerships;
- Strengthening existing immunization systems;
- Supporting supplemental immunization efforts;
- Helping improve the timeliness of Acute Flaccid Paralysis case detection and reporting;
- Providing support to families with paralyzed children; and
- Improving documentation and use of information for improving the quality of the polio eradication effort.
Building partnerships is an essential ingredient of the CORE Group Polio Partners Project vision and mission. Including private voluntary organizations and non-governmental organizations in existing national and international eradication partnerships will accelerate the eradication of polio. The Initiative will develop new collaborative networks of organizations and partner communities, and health authorities that can work together on other health priorities after polio has been eradicated. The Polio Eradication Initiative funds a secretariat in each country with the purpose of building a collaborative network among private voluntary organizations funded by the Initiative in that country.
To achieve the CORE Group Polio Partners Project vision of leaving something of value behind once polio has been eliminated from the target countries, polio projects are strengthening the immunization systems to support both polio eradication and other vaccine-preventable disease control programs by:
- Improving technical and management capacity of health workers to provide immunizations;
- Improving quality of the immunization logistics system;
- Encouraging private sector (e.g., business sector, private physicians) involvement in immunization efforts;
- Increasing community demand for immunizations; and
- Encouraging community participation in and/or contribution to immunization efforts.
CORE Group Polio Eradication Initiative
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