The Global Polio Eradication Initiative partners – Rotary International, the World Health Organisation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and UNICEF – Iis holding a roundtable conference in the European Parliament (Room A5E - 2) on the pressing issue of polio eradication.The event will take place on 28 January 2013 from 10:30 to 13:00, in the European Parliament, and will be hosted by MEP Sajjad Karim and MEP Gay Mitchell. Commissioner Andris Piebalgs will be giving a keynote speech.Due to the recent polio outbreaks in Syria and in Africa, eradicating the remaining 1% of polio cases is more pressing than ever, and Europe has a crucial role to play. Over the last 25 years, polio has been reduced by more than 99%, from 350,000 annual cases to 300 annual cases.  More than 2.5 billion children have been immunized all over the world, and more than 10 million people are today walking who would otherwise have been paralysed by the disease. But these recent outbreaks underscore the risk ongoing endemic transmission poses to countries everywhere.Lack of infrastructure, political instability, and conflict are among the challenges that have led to persistent pockets of transmission in the remaining endemic countries of Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan, which continue to export the poliovirus to polio-free countries. Although Europe has been polio-free for over 10 years, the threat of polio importation and outbreaks remains, as highlighted in the attached published in the journal Nature on 29 October.Please RSVP at polioevent(at)apcoworldwide.com