Rotary and polio
Rotary and polio
"Rotary was the first with the vision of a polio-free world"
Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, Past Director General of the World Health Organisation.
In 1985, Rotary International started a campaign called PolioPlus to immunise the children of the world against polio.
In 1988, Rotary, World Health Organisation (WHO), UNICEF and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) forged the Global Polio Eradication Initiative to eradicate polio as a global imperative and Rotary is now the leading private sector organisation involved in the fight.
The goal was to remove it permanently so that surveillance, screening, and control measures, such as vaccines, would no longer be needed.
Since then, the number of cases has dropped dramatically, but the disease still exists in a handful of countries. Although worldwide efforts to distribute a vaccine have reduced polio by 99 percent, young people are still being infected. More help is needed to ensure the final one percent is wiped out for good.
Rotary support is not limited to raising funds. Rotary members in non-endemic countries personally volunteer their time to support the immunisation programme in the endemic countries. They seek to ensure that the message gets to the people who are cut off from the mainstream by conflict, geography or poverty and that the children living in these communities are immunised.
Rotary members in endemic countries volunteer to help with the immunisation events by delivering vaccine, recruiting volunteers, transporting health workers and volunteers and administering the vaccine. They also organise and support meetings of religious and community leaders to ensure that the whole community is involved in the programme.
The campaign is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation which has pledged $255m provided that Rotary raises $200m by June 2012, a challenge which Rotarians succeeded in beating six months ahead of schedule. Read more about this amazing partnership here.
Hundreds of millions of dollars has been raised by Rotarians across the world. You can help too. Visit the donations page or contact your local Rotary club to find out how you can be involved with the fight to end polio now.