The budget of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, a partnership including the World Health Organisation and the Gates Foundation, has been slashed by 30% in 2026.
Funding will also face a $1.7 billion gap up to 2029, the organisation has said.
The shortfall is largely caused by a global drawback in foreign aid, led by the United States, which is also withdrawing from the WHO, reports Reuters.
The partnership will reduce its work in lower-risk areas, unless there are outbreaks, as well as focus on efficiencies.
“The significant reductions in funding… mean that certain activities will simply not happen,” said Jamal Ahmed, WHO director of polio eradication, in a press conference yesterday..
Other wealthy donor governments like Germany and the United Kingdom have made cuts, a spokesperson said.
In response, the GPEI partners said they plan to focus more on surveillance and vaccination in areas where there is a high risk of polio transmission.
The GPEI will also collaborate more with other global health programmes like measles campaigns, and use strategies like fractional dosing – where as little as a fifth of a vaccine dose is used to stretch out supplies and cut costs, as studies have shown this still protects children from infection.
Wiping out the paralysis-causing viral disease has been a global health aim for decades.
Despite significant progress due to mass vaccination since 1988, ending the disease has proved challenging: the first missed deadline for doing so was in 2000.
In 2025, there were 36 cases of wild polio in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the two countries where it remains endemic and where essential activities will continue, the GPEI said.
There have been 149 cases of the vaccine-derived form of the virus this year in countries including Nigeria. Cases of both forms have fallen since 2024.
