An alternative path to national security? Japan to Fund Polio Effort in Pakistan

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904070604576514831564356112.html

Japan's overseas development agency will fund polio-vaccination campaigns in Pakistan, one of the most difficult fronts against the disease as global health organizations risk missing their goal of stopping polio globally the end of 2012.

The loan, of ¥4.9 billion ($65 million), will be made by the Japan International Cooperation Agency to Pakistan's government. If Pakistan achieves certain goals with the money, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will repay the loan to Japan, according to officials briefed on the plan.

The money will be used for buying the polio vaccine and paying workers to immunize children, among other activities. Polio, caused by a virus, can cripple or kill and affects mostly children. The Gates philanthropy and JICA expect to fund similar loans in other countries, according to a official at the Gates Foundation in Seattle.

Long ago eliminated in most of the world, polio has persisted in four countries—Nigeria, India, Afghanistan and Pakistan—and is resurgent in others where it had been eliminated. A global initiative started in the late 1980s has nearly wiped out the disease. But for the past decade, the number of reported polio cases per year has remained fairly constant at between 1,000 and 2,000.

I've read reports that the childhood immunization isn't necessarily "lifetime" and being exposed to polio in countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan might risk them to contracting the disease.