Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation along with Qatar will launch the Polio Legacy Challenge to help eradicate the disease in Afghanistan, a top official of the organisation told Gulf Times.

According to Chris Elias, the president of the Global Development Division at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the campaign will be done in conjunction with the Islamic Development Bank, along with Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia. 

“With our work on polio eradication, we are actually launching something called the Polio Legacy Challenge with the Islamic Development Bank. 

“Gates Foundation and the governments of Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia will provide some funding through the Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund to support the primary healthcare system in Afghanistan,” Elias said. 

“This is a new initiative that is just beginning now. We are basically working with the countries that have indicated their interest in doing it and in the process of finalising the agreements with the Islamic Development Bank. We hope to launch it in early 2025,” he explained.

“We will have a governing body in which all of the contributors will participate. The funds will be administered through the Islamic Development Bank for support of the primary health care system in Afghanistan,” continued the official.

Elias noted that currently he chairs the board of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, and has been working with Qatar on some of the regional initiatives to help finalise the job of polio eradication.

“We have seen the wild polio virus in the two endemic countries of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Under the auspices of the World Health Organisation, the regional subcommittee on polio eradication is co-chaired by Qatar and UAE. 

“The ministers of health of the Middle East region have actually been very helpful in encouraging both Pakistan and Afghanistan to do what is necessary for the final elimination of polio virus. So again, Qatar has been very helpful in this regard.”

Polio is still present in Afghanistan, with the wild poliovirus endemic only in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In 2024, Afghanistan reported 23 cases. In 2022, Afghanistan reported two cases, and five during 2023. 

US President Joe Biden spoke on Sunday with the families of three Americans detained in Afghanistan since 2022, and emphasized his commitment to bringing home Americans wrongfully held overseas, the White House said.

Biden's administration has been negotiating with the Islamic Emirate since at least July about a US proposal to release the three Americans - Ryan Corbett, George Glezmann and Mahmood Habibi - in exchange for Muhammad Rahim al-Afghani, a high-profile prisoner held in Guantanamo Bay, Reuters reported last week, citing a source familiar with the discussions.

Efforts to secure the release of the Americans continue, a second source familiar with the initiative told Reuters on Sunday.

Corbett and Habibi were detained in separate incidents in August 2022 a year after the IEA regained control of the country.

Glezmann was detained later in 2022 while visiting as a tourist.

Ahmad Habibi, Mahmood Habibi's brother, who was on the call on Sunday, welcomed the discussion with Biden.

"President Biden was very clear in telling us that he would not trade Rahim if the Taliban (IEA) do not let my brother go," he said.

"He said he would not leave him behind. My family is very grateful that he is standing up for my brother."

The IEA, which denies holding Habibi, had countered the US proposal with an offer to exchange Glezmann and Corbett for Rahim and two others, one of the sources told Reuters last week.

The White House noted that Biden has brought home more than 75 Americans unjustly detained around the world, including from Myanmar, China, Gaza, Haiti, Iran, Russia, Rwanda, Venezuela and West Africa.

His administration also brought home all Americans detained in Afghanistan before the US military withdrawal, it said.

A Senate intelligence committee report on the agency's so-called enhanced interrogation program called Rahim an "al Qaeda facilitator" and said he was arrested in Pakistan in June 2007 and "rendered" to the CIA the following month.

He was kept in a secret CIA "black site," where he was subjected to tough interrogation methods, including extensive sleep deprivation, and then sent to Guantanamo Bay in March 2008, the report said.

Biden last week sent 11 Guantanamo detainees to Oman, reducing the prisoner population at the detention center in Cuba by nearly half as part of its effort to close the facility as the president prepares to leave office on Jan. 20.

Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi met with the Saudi ambassador in Kabul, Faisal Bin Talaq Al-Baqmi, and requested an increase in Afghanistan's Hajj quota.

The two sides also discussed expanding bilateral relations, providing consular services to Afghans living in Saudi Arabia and taking advantage of existing opportunities in Afghanistan, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Muttaqi called the relations between Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia valuable and historic and stressed that the exchange of delegations between the two countries should increase.

He also called on the Saudi kingdom to increase the Hajj quota for Afghans and help provide consular services to Afghans living in Saudi Arabia.

According to the Foreign Ministry’s statement, Saudi ambassador, Faisal Bin Talaq Al-Baqmi, described the bilateral relations between Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia as historic and stressed that his country wants to help Afghans in various fields with its presence in Kabul.

He also said that the two countries can cooperate in different fields and the aim of resumption of Saudi embassy’s operations in Kabul is to use all existing potentials.