Oct. 24 is World Polio Day. Each year Rotary Clubs around the world, in partnership with the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, raise awareness of the effort and progress made in eradicating this paralyzing and potentially fatal disease, primarily affecting children under age five.
Poliomyelitis (polio) is a caused by a virus that invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis in hours. In the 1950s, polio was a constant threat to children and a significant concern for parents. Children who contracted polio had to wear leg braces or have assistance breathing after recovery. President Franklin Roosevelt is a well-know polio victim.
This devastating disease would still impact many children’s lives and health around the world without the oral vaccine that provides children immunity. Wide distribution and application of the vaccine in conjunction with application of the vaccine to newborn children substantially reduced polio’s presence and threat in this country. However, polio continued to kill and paralyze children throughout large parts of the world until recent years.
In 1985, Rotary International and its member local clubs around the world established the Polio Plus project with the goal of eradicating this viral killer and crippler of children from around the world. In 1988, Rotary and other partners including the World Health Organization formed the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. At that time there were approximately 350,000 cases of polio in 125 countries every year. Due to these efforts, polio cases were reduced by 99.9 percent, almost 19.4 million people who would otherwise have been crippled are walking and more than 1.5 million people are alive who may have died.
Rotary set an initial goal in 1985 to raise $120 million to begin the international effort to ensure that the polio vaccine was available to every child in the world. Over the past 35 years Rotary members have contributed more than $2.2 billion and countless volunteer hours to vaccinate almost three billion children in 122 countries. In addition, governments and other organizations have contributed more than $10 billion to the effort. Most recently, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledged to match Rotary contributions 2-to-1 up to $100 million per year.
Today, polio cases from the natural wild virus are only present in Afghanistan and Pakistan, two countries which present challenges to achieving vaccination of all children. However Rotary and its partners and volunteers are committed to press ahead to finish the job, vaccinating all the children in these two countries defeating, and eradicating polio from the earth.
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and continuing controversies concerning the acceptance and use of the vaccines developed to prevent polio, eradication efforts demonstrate comprehensive vaccination programs in defeating and eradicating disease. World Polio Day provides an opportunity to recognize and celebrate the progress in eradicating one of the most feared viral diseases in the world and to rededicate the world to seeing the effort through to a polio-free world.
