African health ministers have taken an important step toward consolidating gains made against poliomyelitis. Meeting in Addis Ababa from August 25 to 28 during the 76th session of the World Health Organization Regional Committee for Africa, they adopted the Framework for Polio Transition and Sustainability in the WHO African Region, covering the period 2026-2035.
The framework aims to support countries in preserving progress achieved after decades of mobilization. It rests on several pillars: maintaining high-quality epidemiological surveillance, preserving laboratory and emergency response capacity, strengthening routine childhood immunization, securing sustainable domestic financing, and improving governance and accountability in program management. The text also provides for individualized support to help states manage their own transition toward independently sustaining the fight against polio.
The stakes remain high for a continent that has not yet fully closed the book on the virus. The African Region was certified free of indigenous wild poliovirus in 2020, a victory hailed at the time as historic. Yet outbreaks of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus continue in several countries, against a backdrop of declining global funding for the fight against the disease, persistent gaps in population immunity, and health systems weakened by other pressures.
The new regional framework builds on the WHO’s Global Polio Transition Strategic Framework and the strategy known as Sustaining a Polio-free World. It seeks to gradually shift essential polio functions, currently largely funded and run through dedicated programs, toward lasting integration within national health systems by 2035.
For WHO officials, the success of this transition will depend above all on ownership of the issue by governments themselves. Strong national commitment, sustainable financing, and the integration of resources currently devoted to polio into a broader health offering are presented as essential conditions to avoid any setback and to durably protect Africa’s children from the disease.