$200M cash injection for polio vacc campaign

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has announced the award of a $200.0 million donation to the Rotary International's PolioPlus program for the eradication of polio. The announcement follows recent reports of difficulties with the World Health Organization's efforts to eliminate the disease in the wild (Marketletters passim).

According to the UK's public service broadcaster, the BBC, polio-related paralysis cases have fallen from 360,000 per year to about 700 per year since the late 1980s. However, local opposition in Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan, influenced by conspiracy theories that the vaccine is designed to "sterlize Muslim children," has prevented international agencies from completing immunization programs.