Efforts to Stop Polio Continue
17 May 2011
An Afghan child receives a vaccination during a polio eradication campaign in Jalalabad in March
FAITH LAPIDUS: This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I'm Faith Lapidus.
BOB DOUGHTY: And I'm Bob Doughty. On our program this week, we tell about efforts to defeat the disease polio.
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FAITH LAPIDUS: Poliomyelitis does not want to die. Sometimes the disease seems close to disappearing. Then new cases appear.
But American businessman and philanthropist Bill Gates continues to believe that wild polio can be stopped. Money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has helped finance efforts against polio for more than twenty years.
The foundation recently announced winners of its Grand Challenges Explorations program. Some of the winners were honored for their work with polio, including studies aimed at leading to new vaccines.
Each winner will receive a grant of one hundred thousand dollars. Entrants competing for the grants were urged to think “out of the box,” to develop ideas that are non-traditional. The goal is to speed the day when the international coalition to defeat polio has no more work to do.
BOB DOUGHTY: Some of the Grand Challenges Explorations money is for research that could improve vaccine given to children in developing countries. The vaccine currently in use is swallowed. This oral vaccine contains a weakened version of the live poliovirus.
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