One Day. One Focus: Ending Polio World-wide.
Rotary is dedicated to causes that build international relationships, improve lives, and create a better world to support our peace efforts and end polio forever. However, ending polio is Rotary’s main humanitarian goal, and PolioPlus is the program that supports these efforts.
Facts about polio:
- Rotary members have played a key role in bringing the world to the brink of polio eradication. Their efforts have ended polio in 122 countries.
- Rotary’s partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) include the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), UNICEF, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It set up 145 labs to monitor polio around the world and Rotary has played a leading role in supporting these facilities.
- 72 countries are being monitored for polio.
- Rotary and its partners have administered 15 billion vaccine doses since 2000. We’ve immunized 2.5 billion kids.
- The vaccine itself isn’t the biggest expense in a vaccination. It’s the distribution of the vaccine that costs so much, e. g. transportation and staffing.
- Since Rotary’s PolioPlus was launched in 1985, the incidence of wild polio cases has deceased by 99.9% and the wild polio virus remains endemic in just 2 countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
- $50 Billion is the total cost benefit of preventing polio.
- 200,000 cases of polio are expected each year if immunization campaigns stop.
For more information about Rotary’s fight to end polio forever, check this website: https://www.rotary.org/en/plus-polioplus