Purpose: Support global eradication efforts in polio-endemic countries, including national immunization days and monitoring of poliovirus transmission.
Goal: Complete financial commitments by the end of the Rotary year.
In 1985, Rotary launched the PolioPlus program to protect children worldwide from the cruel and fatal consequences of polio. In 1988, the World Health Assembly challenged the world to eradicate polio. Since that time, Rotary's efforts and those of partner agencies, including the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children's Fund, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and governments around the world, have achieved a 99 percent reduction in the number of polio cases worldwide. Rotarians stand at the brink of a great victory and look forward to celebrating the global eradication of polio in 2005, the organization's centennial year.
Rotary's involvement in polio eradication began in 1979 with a five-year commitment to provide and help deliver polio vaccine to six million children of the Philippines. It was the first project of the new Health, Hunger, and Humanity (3-H) program. In the next four years, similar five-year commitments were approved for Haiti, Bolivia, Morocco, Sierra Leone, and Cambodia.
In the early 1980s, Rotary began planning for the most ambitious program in its history — to immunize all of world's children against polio. The plan required collaboration with international, national, and local health agencies. With the advice and support of the late Dr. Albert Sabin, developer of the oral polio vaccine, Rotary established its PolioPlus program in 1985.
Rotary's pledge of US$120 million to fund its PolioPlus program was announced in October 1985 at the 40th anniversary of the United Nations. This ambitious commitment electrified the global public health community. Within three years, Rotarians had more than doubled their fundraising goal, donating US$247 million. By 2005, Rotary's financial commitment will exceed half a billion dollars.
Rotary's role in polio eradication continues to evolve. Initially its role was that of a catalyst, providing money for vaccine and volunteer support to overcome problems associated with distribution. A Rotary Foundation grant funded a core group of polio experts at the World Health Organization (WHO), who have guided the global program. In more recent years, PolioPlus funds have funded transportation and other operational costs associated with vaccine delivery, surveillance efforts (including laboratory needs) to identify areas where the virus circulates, and training for healthcare workers and volunteers involved in the immunization process.
In 1995, Rotary launched a task force to advocate polio eradication to donor governments, resulting in more than $1.5 billion in polio-specific grants from public sector advocacy . In 2000, Rotary teamed up with the United Nations Foundation to carry a financial appeal to the private sector — foundations, corporations, and wealthy individuals. The private sector has contributed more than $100 million to eradication efforts.
As the war on polio enters its final phases, adequate funding is the No. 1 obstacle to achieving a polio-free world by the year 2005, Rotary's centennial. In February 2002, Rotary rose to the challenge once again, announcing a Polio Eradication Fundraising Campaign to raise US$80 million to contribute to the funding gap, estimated at US$275 million as of April 2002 by the World Health Organization.
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative is recognized worldwide as a model of public and private cooperation in pursuit of a humanitarian goal. WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland, recently praised Rotarians as the first group with the vision of a polio-free world, and the resolve to see the job done.
Powerpoint Presentation - PolioPlus: Our Priority
Rotary International Polio Plus web site
Help End Polio - Rotary has launched a new "mini" website to give the general public an opportunity to help in polio by contributing to Rotary's US$100 Million Challenge from the Bill & Melinda Gate Foundation. Check out the 3-page site. Rotarians should continue to contribute through the Member Access Portal.
Below are pictures of Dee Boswell's trip to Niger for National Immunization Day (NID) in November 2005.
