Purple4Polio

POLIO ERADICATION

Perhaps Rotary’s biggest international challenge has been its determination to eradicate Polio. In 1985 Rotarians took the amazing decision to immunise every child in the world in order to end this scourge. Subsequently the WHO has participated and more recently the Bill Gates Foundation has matched every penny raised by Rotary. Today, thanks to the pioneering work of Rotary, Polio is almost eradicated.

It is a disease which primarily affects children under 5.

The Purple for Polio initiative is one launched by Rotary in Great Britain and Ireland to raise funds and awareness for their efforts to eradicate polio across the world and promote the work of their global campaign, End Polio Now.

When a child receives their life saving polio drops on mass polio immunisation days in many countries their little finger is painted with a purple dye so it is clear they have received their life saving vaccine.

Rotary’s pledge for a polio free world was made  when there were 125 polio endemic countries, 350,000 cases and hundreds of new cases every single day. In 2018 there were only 19 cases in the entire world but as long as there is one single case anywhere children everywhere are at risk.

Thanks to Rotary, and the support of their partners the World Health Organisation,, Unicef, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, there are now just two countries still classed as endemic: Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Already Rotary Clubs around the world have invested over $1 billion in the target to eliminate polio completely. To finish the job over 2 billion doses of oral polio vaccine have to be administered each and every year in over 60 countries until the world is finally certified polio free. The Gates Foundation has promised to treble donations made in the future.

So eradication is now so close! However there have been signs of the disease rearing its head in parts of Africa in 2022. The Club is raising funds in 2022 by selling 4000 crocus corms whose flowers represent the purple dye mentioned above.