Welcome

• Polio is a crippling and potentially fatal infectious disease, polio (poliomyelitis) still strikes children mainly under the age of five in countries in Asia and Africa.

• Polio can cause paralysis and sometimes death. Because there is no cure for polio, the best protection is prevention. For as little as US$0.60 worth of vaccine, a child can be protected against this crippling disease for life.

• Polio can cause paralysis within hours, and polio paralysis is almost always irreversible.

• In the most severe cases, polio attacks the motor neurons of the brain stem, causing breathing difficulty or even death.

• Historically, polio has been the world’s greatest cause of disability.

If polio isn’t eradicated, the world will continue to live under the threat of the disease. 

A History of Polio

Polio, or poliomyelitis, is a paralyzing and potentially deadly infectious disease that most commonly affects children under the age of 5, and is caused by the poliovirus. The virus spreads from person to person, typically through contaminated water. It can then attack the nervous system. Years after recovery, post-polio syndrome may occur, with a slow development of muscle weakness similar to that which the person had during the initial infection.

Polio has been on the earth for thousands of years, with depictions disease in ancient art, such as in the carvings inside an ancient Egyptian pyramid, portraying a priest with a withered leg.

In the early 20th century, polio was one of the most feared diseases in the industrialized world. It paralyzed hundreds of thousands of children every year. Effective vaccines against polio were introduced by Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, in the 1950s and 60s. Polio was brought under control and practically eliminated as a public health problem in the United States and other countries. As of 1979, the United States was polio free; in 1988 the global polio eradication initiatives began. Since then more than 25 billion children have immunized, Thanks to the cooperation more than 200 countries, backed by an international investment of more than US$11 billion. The timeline of the history of polio may be found at www.polio.org, as well as www.endpolio.org.

Today, only two countries have not stopped polio. They are Pakistan and Afghanistan. Many factors contribute to their inability to eradicate this disease. Rotary international, the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control, UNICEF, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have been largely responsible for the success of polio eradication in all the other countries. Rotary has been working to eradicate polio for more than 30 years. Our goal of ridding the world of this disease is closer than ever. As a founding partner of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, we've reduced polio cases by 99.9 percent since our first project to vaccinate children in the Philippines in 1979.

We've helped immunize more than 2.5 billion children in 122 countries. So far, Rotary has contributed more than $1.8 billion toward eradicating the disease worldwide. But it’s crucial to continue working to keep other countries polio-free. If all eradication efforts stopped today, within 10 years, polio could paralyze as many as 200,000 children each year.

You, as Rotarians, are important to the world - Please continue to fight for the eradication of polio!

Rotary and Polio

On 29 September 1979, volunteers administered drops of oral polio vaccine to children at a health center in Guadalupe Viejo, Makati, Philippines. The event in metropolitan Manila was arranged and attended by Rotarians and delegates from the Philippine Ministry of Health.

When James L. Bomar Jr., then RI president, put the first drops of vaccine into a child’s mouth, he ceremonially launched the Philippine poliomyelitis immunization effort. Rotary’s first Health, Hunger and Humanity (3-H) Grant project was underway.

Bomar and Enrique M. Garcia, the country’s minister of health, had earlier signed an agreement committing Rotary International and the government of the Philippines to a joint multiyear effort to immunize about 6 million children against polio, at a cost of about $760,000.

In a 1993 interview, Bomar reminisced about the trip. He recalled how the brother of one of the children he had immunized tugged on his pant leg to get his attention and said, “Thank you, thank you, Rotary.”

The project’s success led Rotary to make polio eradication a top priority. Rotary launched PolioPlus in 1985 and was a founding member of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988. Through decades of commitment and work by Rotary and our partners, more than 2.5 billion children have received the oral polio vaccine.

1979 – Rotary International begins its fight against polio with a multi-year project to immunize 6 million children in the Philippines.

1985 – Rotary International launches PolioPlus, the first and largest internationally coordinated private-sector support of a public health initiative, with an initial fundraising target of US$120 million.

1988 – Rotary International and the World Health Organization launch the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. There are an estimated 350,000 cases of polio in 125 countries.

1994 – The International Commission for the Certification of Poliomyelitis Eradication announces that polio has been eliminated from the Americas.

1995 – Health workers and volunteers immunize 165 million children in China and India in 1 week. Rotary launches the PolioPlus Partners program, enabling Rotary members in polio-free countries to provide support to fellow members in polio-affected countries for polio eradication activities.

2000 – A record 550 million children – almost 10% of the world's population – receive the oral polio vaccine. The Western Pacific region, spanning from Australia to China, is declared polio-free. 

2003 – The Rotary Foundation raises $119 million in a 12-month campaign. Rotary's total contribution to polio eradication exceeds $500 million. Six countries remain polio-endemic – Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan.

2004 – In Africa, synchronized National Immunization Days in 23 countries target 80 million children, the largest coordinated polio immunization effort on the continent.

2006 – In Africa, synchronized National Immunization Days in 23 countries target 80 million children, the largest coordinated polio immunization effort on the continent. 

2006 – The number of polio-endemic countries drops to 4 - Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, Pakistan.

2009 – Rotary's overall contribution to the eradication effort nears $800 million. In January, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation pledges $355 million and issues Rotary a challenge grant of $200 million. This announcement will result in a combined $555 million in support of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. 

2011 – Rotary welcomes celebrities and other major public figures into a new public awareness campaign and ambassador program called "This Close" to ending polio. Program ambassadors include Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Desmond Tutu, violinist Itzhak Perlman, co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Bill Gates, Grammy Award-winning singers Angelique Kidjo and Ziggy Marley, and environmentalist Dr. Jane Goodall. Rotary's funding for polio eradication exceeds $1 billion.

2012 – India surpasses 1 year without a recorded case of polio and is removed from the list of countries where polio is endemic. Polio remains endemic in just 3 countries. Rotary surpasses its $200 Million Challenge fundraising goal more than 5  months earlier than expected.

2014 – India goes 3 full years without a new case caused by the wild poliovirus, and the World Health Organization certifies the South-East Asia region polio-free. Polio cases are down over 99% since 1988.

2020 - Africa declared free of wild polio virus

Read more about Rotary's history with polio eradication here or check out The Amazing Story of Polio and Rotary comic book.

Reaching the ultimate goal of a polio-free world presents ongoing challenges, not the least of which is a hundreds of million dollar funding gap. Of course, Rotary alone can't fill this gap, but continued Rotarian advocacy for government support can help enormously.

Rotary's PolioPlus Program

PolioPlus, the most ambitious program in Rotary's history, is the volunteer arm of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

Since 1985, Rotary has led the private sector in the global effort to rid the world of this crippling disease. Today, PolioPlus and its role in the initiative is recognized worldwide as a model of public-private cooperation in pursuit of a humanitarian goal.

• To date, Rotary has contributed more than US$2 billion to eradicate polio.
• Rotary’s leadership, beginning in 1985, inspired the World Health Assembly to pass a resolution to eradicate polio, which paved the way for the formation of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988.
• Thousands of Rotarians around the world have volunteered during National Immunization Days to immunize children.
• The PolioPlus program helps Rotary fund operational costs, such as transportation, vaccine delivery, social mobilization, and training of health workers, and support surveillance activities.
• Rotarians work to encourage both donor and polio-affected governments to commit the political and financial resources needed to eradicate polio.

But that's not all! The "plus" in PolioPlus means that many other areas are served by Rotary through this program. Preventing others diseases, providing clean water, creating jobs and improving healthcare are just some of the other derived outputs and derivations of the PolioPlus program. Learn more here.