The campaign against polio has received an added boost with the declaration of world leaders to channel more funds to the fight.

This was the major consensus during the conference of the Commonwealth Heads of Government in Perth over the weekend, with Prime Minister Julia Gilliard pledging A$50 million or US$53.3 million for four years in this collaborative effort.

The World Health Organization has reported a 99 percent decrease in polio cases since 1988 as a result of the global initiatives to eliminate the disease from approximately 350,000 cases to a low of 1,349.

But in four countries, polio remains endemic: Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan. The last three are members of the Commonwealth.

In most countries, the global effort has expanded capacities to tackle other infectious diseases by building effective surveillance and immunization systems according to the WHO media centre.

Likewise, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said his country would commit further investments in polio surveillance and immunisations without giving a figure, while philanthropist Bill Gates pledged $40 million in new funding, according to Agence France-Presse.

British Prime Minister David Cameron was confident that the world is almost sure to wipe out the disease. His government has committed at the start of the year $64.5 million to this effort.

Additional information from the WHO revealed that in 1994, the WHO Region of the Americas (36 countries) was certified polio-free, followed by the WHO Western Pacific Region (37 countries and areas including China) in 2000 and the WHO European Region (51 countries) in June 2002. In 2010, the European Region suffered its first importation of polio after certification. In 2011, the WHO Western Pacific Region also suffered an importation of polio virus.

In 2009, more than 361 million children were immunized in 40 countries during 273 supplementary immunization activities (SIAs). Globally, polio surveillance is at historical highs, as represented by the timely detection of cases of acute flaccid paralysis.

The AFP report said Gilliard announced that "this is an issue which within our lifetime was a problem right around the world. Now we are in grasping distance of the end of polio worldwide and that is what we are determined to do."