POLIO PLUS, How we got to where we are today.
In 1965 the Rotary Foundation created the Health, Hunger and Humanity Program (commonly referred to as the 3-H Program to “Improve health, alleviate hunger and enhance human and social development”.
In 1978 the Foundation approved a $760,000 3-H grant for a 5 year polio immunization project in the Philippines.
The next year, 1979, two major events occurred; Rotary International reached agreement with the Philippine government to commence the immunization of 6 million children, and the very last case of wild poliovirus occurred in the U.S.
On Sept. 29, 1979, then R.I. President James L. Bomar, Jr. administered the first drops of polio vaccine to a Philippine child.
In 1985 Rotary formally launched Polio Plus (an ambitious project to rid the world of the polio virus once and for all).
In 2007 the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded the Rotary Foundation a $100 million challenge grant toward the Polio Plus campaign, and two years later they added an additional $225 million.
To date Rotarians have contributed over $900 million toward Polio Plus and have helped immunize more than 2.5 billion children against polio in 122 countries.
In 2016 there were only 37 new cases in the entire world, and as we know the disease is now found in only 3 countries, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria, but can resurface in countries in conflict, where health systems are disrupted.