The Task Force’s
Last Mile Philosophy: Turning Investments into Lasting Results and Making the World A Safer Place
The Task Force for Global Health empowers more than 150 countries to build national health systems and equip local experts to independently run and maintain these systems.
The Task Force proudly supports “the last mile” of global health efforts to achieve defined, concrete outcomes, building countries’ self-reliance – and in the process protecting people everywhere, including Americans, from the global spread of deadly diseases and other health threats. In our four decades of work, The Task Force has helped dozens of countries establish self-sustaining programs. See some of our highest impact work below.
POLIO
- 99% decrease
- 20 million cases of polio prevented
- Nearing last mile of eradication
116 Million Children Vaccinated
in 9 Countries
31.10.2023
Photographer Bevis Fusha
The Task Force’s Polio Surge Team is working with countries and Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) partners to completely eradicate polio, such that no one for the rest of human history will encounter this paralyzing and highly contagious disease. Since the 1988 launch of GPEI, polio cases have decreased by more than 99%, and polio vaccines have prevented about 20 million cases of paralysis in children. We are tantalizingly close to worldwide eradication, as we work with partners to finish the last mile of this highly successful journey.
In 2024 alone, The Task Force’s Polio Surge Team vaccinated 116 million children across nine countries. The Surge Team also provides critical in-country technical support, which includes helping countries to develop outbreak response plans that they will implement independently.
NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES (NTDs)
- 8% decrease in people needing treatment
- 6 programs working on NTDs
- 5 billion treatments for river blindness
- 1.1 billion treatments for Trachoma
305 Million People
No longer require treatment for Lymphatic Filariasis
4 Countries
Eliminated Lymphatic Filariasis
47 Million People
No longer require treatment for River Blindness
5 Countries
Eliminated River Blindness
93% Decrease
of people at risk for Trachoma
21 Countries
Eliminated Trachoma
This past year, the World Health Organization noted an 8% decrease in the number of people who required treatment for NTDs in 2023 compared to the previous year, reflecting sustained gains in the fight against diseases that blind, disable and stigmatiz
e hundreds of millions of people. Task Force NTD programs played a major role in this milestone with six programs working on this issue, some of them for decades.
River blindness is one such NTD: a painful disease that causes blindness in severe cases. Another is lymphatic filariasis (LF), which causes elephantiasis, a disfiguring swelling of the limbs resulting in long-term disability.
The Task Force has a long-term partnership with Merck & Co., Inc. called the Mectizan Donation Program, dedicated to eliminating these two diseases–and its successes are inspiring. The program has stewarded the donation of 5 billion treatments. River blindness has now been eliminated in Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico and Niger. Lymphatic filariasis has been eliminated in Malawi, Timor-Leste, Togo and Yemen. Outside these countries, due to global NTD efforts, 305 million more people no longer need treatment for LF, and 47 million people live in areas that do not require treatment for river blindness.
Trachoma, another NTD, is the leading cause of infectious blindness in the world. Since 2002, global investments, including the donation of 1.1 billion treatments, have reduced the number of people at risk of blinding trachoma by 93%. Working through the International Trachoma Initiative, a partnership between Pfizer, The Task Force and others, these investments have built strong national trachoma programs and advanced the global goal of eliminating trachoma as a public health threat by 2030, with 21 countries having been validated by WHO as achieving trachoma elimination.
NATIONAL VACCINE CAPACITY
- >24 countries supported by The Task Force for Global Health
- 10 countries established their own programs
- 240% cost share increase
2.1 Million
Influenza vaccines purchased by partner countries
40 Countries
Trained and equipped for COVID-19 pandemic
15.1.2024
Photographer Bevis Fusha
The Partnership for International Vaccine Initiatives (PIVI) program helps countries develop and assume full support of their own influenza control and pandemic vaccine preparedness programs. Through PIVI, more than two dozen countries have built sustainable influenza vaccination programs with Task Force support. Of these, 10 countries have already established their own independent programs, and more are on track to graduate. PIVI partner countries dramatically increase their financial ownership of vaccine programs (increasing their cost share by 240% between their first and fifth year). In 2024, PIVI partner countries purchased a record number of 2.1 million influenza vaccines.
A related effort during the last few years, known as CoVIP, trained and equipped 40 countries during the COVID-19 pandemic to establish immunization systems, which now have the knowledge and expertise to carry on immunization efforts on their own.
Disease Surveillance, Outbreak Detection & Public Health Workforce Strengthening
- > 4,000 surveillance officers
- > 13,000 community health workers
- 83 global member training programs
- 16 countries
22,000+
Graduate Epidemiologists
14,000+
diseases outbreaks investigated
8,680
Surveillance systems established
The Task Force has helped build disease surveillance systems globally for decades, establishing in-country training programs that have fielded thousands of ‘disease detectives’ to monitor and respond to outbreaks. Today, these disease detectives are working worldwide to contain Ebola, Marburg, bird flu and many other infectious disease outbreaks, reducing the risk of pandemics.
Launched in 2023, the Strengthening Outbreak Notification and Response (SONAR) program has yielded early successes with countries poised to create independent early warning surveillance systems. More than 4,000 surveillance officers and more than 13,000 community health workers have been trained on disease surveillance and outbreak detection, putting outbreak containment solutions in the hands of local health professionals.
The Task Force program TEPHINET strengthens public health systems around the world by building, supporting and connecting Field Epidemiology Training Programs (FETP) to help on-the-ground disease detectives better understand and stop the spread of diseases, including in-country and global outbreaks. TEPHINET is the only global network of its kind – with 83 members training public health workforces in 165 countries and territories. Half of the FETP programs now operate independently, and dozens of others are on track to self-sufficiency.
To date, 22,000+ epidemiologists have graduated from FETP programs, helping to investigate more than 14,000 disease outbreaks and establishing 8,680 surveillance systems.
