Germany’s Polio Dilemma: Leadership at the Last Mile
The world is close to eradicating polio. Germany’s budget cuts now raise questions about how to sustain progress and leadership in global health.
By Guillaume Grosso (General Manager at Global Citizen) and Zabeth Wagemann (Germany Lead at Global Citizen)
For more than three decades, the world has pursued one of the most ambitious public health goals in history: the eradication of poliomyelitis. Since 1988, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) has driven down global cases by more than 99 percent. Countries once devastated by the disease have been declared polio-free, and millions of children have been spared paralysis or death. After smallpox, polio could become only the second human disease ever eradicated.
Yet reaching zero has proven more complex than any stage before. Even as global case numbers fall to historic lows, new challenges continue to test the resilience of eradication efforts. Vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) outbreaks have appeared in several regions, including Gaza in 2024, where the collapse of essential health services interrupted immunization campaigns. Environmental surveillance has also detected traces of the virus in the wastewater of European cities such as Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, and Munich. These findings are reminders that eradication is not a symbolic goal but a scientific and logistical race that requires persistence, adaptability, and political will.
Eradication efforts now depend on reaching children in the most inaccessible areas, maintaining high-quality surveillance, and ensuring rapid response capabilities when new outbreaks emerge. Each of these steps demands coordination, trained personnel, and consistent resources. In this final phase, complacency is as dangerous as the virus itself. The margin for error has narrowed, and even short-term funding gaps can jeopardize decades of progress.
Germany has played a leading role in this global health achievement. Since 1988, Germany has contributed approximately €854 million to polio eradication, helping to vaccinate an estimated over 120 million children and the prevention of more than 800,000 paralysis cases. Through the Global Health Strategy (2020), the Federal Government committed to the long-term eradication of polio, framing it as a cornerstone of Germany’s global health engagement. This commitment was reaffirmed in 2022 when Germany hosted a donor conference that mobilized €2.6 billion for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, alongside an increase in annual national contributions to €37 million for 2023. These steps established Germany as a credible voice for sustained investment in Global Health, the SDGs, and the protection of vulnerable populations.
In this context, the recent draft federal budget, which plans to reduce contributions to €19.2 million in 2026, representing a cut of roughly 36 percent from 2025 and 48 percent from 2024, has raised concern across the global health community. This reduction comes at a time when the polio program critically depends on reliable and adaptable funding to maintain immunization activities and surveillance networks. According to experts within the GPEI, such financial instability disrupts strategic planning, delays outbreak responses, and heightens the risk of leaving vulnerable areas unprotected.
The implications extend beyond polio. The GPEI network supports laboratories, field surveillance, and rapid response systems that have also been mobilized to address Ebola, COVID-19, and measles outbreaks. It is one of the most cost-effective examples of how targeted global health investments generate broader health security benefits. A withdrawal of support at this stage would not only delay eradication but weaken global preparedness and trust in international commitments.
Germany’s decision also invites a broader reflection on the country’s position in global health diplomacy. Once a driving force in shaping international priorities through the G7, the World Health Summit, and its national strategies, Germany now faces questions about how it aligns domestic budget constraints with its international ambitions. In a rapidly changing global landscape where other actors are stepping up - Saudi Arabia pledged $500 million in 2024, and the United Arab Emirates funded emergency vaccination campaigns after the Gaza outbreak - continued leadership requires consistency between policy and practice.
Health diplomacy depends not only on high-level commitments but on reliability when sustained engagement is required. The effectiveness of global health initiatives relies on consistent contributions from partners that have shaped these efforts over decades. For Germany, continuing support for polio eradication would reaffirm its standing as a trusted and strategic actor in global health policy, while safeguarding one of the most significant achievements in international public health cooperation.
Polio eradication remains within reach, yet the final stage demands persistence and clarity of purpose. The coming years will show whether global health actors can translate long-term strategies into steady implementation. Maintaining investment now would demonstrate confidence in the shared capacity to achieve lasting results for global health security and for future generations.
Photo 1: Copyright: Asad Zaidi/GAVI
Photo 2: Copyright: Prakhar Deep Jain/GAVI