Laura Smyth (La Trobe, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to be able to speak on this motion today and give my support to the campaign for a polio-free future. I also commend the efforts of the member for Fraser in bringing this matter to the attention of this place and for raising its profile, along with the efforts of so many others who I know are campaigning vigorously on such an important issue.

We know that polio mainly affects children under the age of five and that one in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis. This has profound effects on children in the developing world; it has profound effects on their families and their communities and the opportunities that are available to those children in already difficult circumstances would be made substantially more difficult. Among those paralysed, five per cent to 10 per cent may die when their breathing muscles become immobilised. The incidence of polio, despite these rather troubling features of the disease, has decreased by over 99 per cent since 1988. It has gone from an estimated 350,000 cases worldwide at that time to just over 1,600 reported cases in 2009. That reduction really is a direct result of the global effort to eradicate the disease and the vigilance of so many people who have campaigned steadfastly in relation to it. I commend successive Australian governments for their roles in that global effort.

We know that at the 41st World Health Assembly in 1988, which then consisted of delegates from around 160 member states, a resolution was adopted for the worldwide eradication of polio. It marked at that time the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, which was spearheaded by the World Health Organisation, Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and UNICEF. As a result, in 1994 the WHO was able to declare that the 36 countries that make up the region of the Americas were polio-free. In 2000 the western Pacific region of 37 countries was also declared free from the polio virus and the European region of 51 countries received polio-free status in June 2002. In 2009 more than 361 million children were immunised against the disease.

In 2010 only four countries in the world remained polio-endemic, down from more than 125 in 1988, demonstrating the success of vigilant campaigning on such a significant health issue. Those remaining countries are Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan. Interestingly, three of those countries are Commonwealth nations. We know that persistent pockets of polio transmission remain in northern India, northern Nigeria and the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which are the current focus of polio eradication initiatives. In addition to this polio has re-established itself in four other countries: Angola, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and, it is suspected, in Sudan. A number of other countries we know experienced outbreaks in 2010 as a result of the virus being imported into those countries. As long as a single child remains infected, children in all countries are at risk of contracting polio. I recognise that the overall success of eradicating polio worldwide hinges on closing a substantial funding gap to finance the next steps of the global eradication initiative. I am very pleased that Australia has committed to investing an additional $140 million from 2011 to 2013 to support the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation. GAVI is an innovative public-private international fund that increases access to vaccines and immunisation against preventable diseases in some of the world's poorest countries. One of these preventable diseases is polio. I also know that the Global Poverty Project is running a grassroots campaign under the banner of 'The end of polio' and has initiated a petition in support of global polio eradication efforts. I met with them recently to discuss that.

I am very pleased to have people within my own community with an interest in this issue. Indeed, at a local community forum I held recently in my electorate volunteers from the Global Poverty Project gave a particularly pertinent presentation on how to become more active in the types of campaigns that they run on issues such as this. I am pleased to be able support their work in that way. I also know that Rotary, including Rotary groups within my own electorate, have taken a keen interest in poverty alleviation and improving the circumstances of those in developing nations, and I lend my support to their cause. (Time expired)

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