Edward has backed the 'One Last Push' campaign to eradicate polio around the world, at a wheelchair basketball match on World Polio Day.
While polio has been eradicated in virtually every country around the globe, there remain a handful of areas where there is still more work to do to eradicate the disease completely. The wheelchair basketball match in Trafalgar Square, involving MPs from all parties, people who have had polio, campaigners and paralympians, was organised by the 'One Last Push' campaign and the campaigning movement, Results UK to highlight the need to make that last push.
Huge progress has been made to wipe out this disease since the formation in 1985 of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, with the number of children around the world infected with polio dropping from c. 350,000 in 1985, to just 23 cases in 2016. While there is no cure for polio, there is an effective vaccine and it has been getting this to children around the world that has delivered the dramatic drop in the number of cases.
Supporting the teams at the basketball match, Edward said: "Amazing progress has been made in tackling polio around the world, with the UK Government playing a leading role in that work which we can be proud of, but there remains that little bit more to do to eradicate this disease completely. We are so close - we just need to make 'One Last Push'. On World Polio Day I joined campaigners and colleagues to join the call for that 'One Last Push' so that we can truly see an end to this disease."