Polio official discusses eradication efforts in Gates Foundation blog interview

In the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's "Impatient Optimists" blog, Eric Porterfield, director of global health communications at the United Nations Foundation, interviews Jeffrey Bates, a polio communications for development (C4D) officer, about India's efforts to eradicate polio. Marking two years of not recording a polio case, India's accomplishment "gave a lot of momentum and motivation to the polio partnership to renew their efforts, it gave donors some confidence that the millions and millions that they've put into the initiative were paying off, so I think the benefits for the eradication initiative are almost incalculable," Bates said, according to the blog. "In 2013, I think we are looking at more intense discussion and country leaders getting involved given that we now only have three polio endemic countries," Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria, he stated, the blog writes (1/11).