WHO and China CDC to host international workshop on cross-regional collaboration to protect polio-free areas

On 21-22 July 2011 in Urumqi, Xinjiang, China, WHO will co-host an international workshop on polio eradication with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC). The workshop, titled 'Securing the Gains: Cross-Regional Collaboration in Protecting Polio-free Areas', will bring together nearly 20 international public health specialists from the WHO Regions of the Eastern Mediterranean, Europe, Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific, key partner agencies and more than 20 Chinese counterpart experts engaged in the field of polio eradication.

Workshop participants, including the Programme Manager of the Vaccine-preventable Diseases & Immunization programme at WHO/Europe and specialists from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, will discuss concrete ways to collaboratively protect polio-free areas from re-infection and help facilitate global polio eradication.

In a globalized world where viruses know no national boundaries, international leadership and collaboration is vital to the success of the global effort to eradicate polio, particularly as it reaches the final stages.