Purple 4 Polio February 2024

Rotary, Poliomyelitis and Crocus - What’s the Connection?

Towards the end of February visitors to the Jubilee Gardens, hopefully, will see, near to the rear entrance to Bewdley Museum, a swathe of purple crocus in bloom again and may well appreciate the beauty without realising the significance of this annual show.

In October 2016 members of Bewdley Rotary planted 5000 crocus bulbs in Jubilee Gardens to raise the profile of the Rotary ‘Polio Plus’ campaign to eliminate polio from the world.

Poliomyelitis has caused paralysis and death for much of human history and in the 1940s and 1950s paralysed or killed over half a million people worldwide every year.In 

1955 a vaccine was developed, followed in 1962 by an oral vaccine, and in 1979 Rotary Clubs in the Philippines worked together on a project to immunise all the 6 million children in their islands against polio. The project was so successful that Rotary International set in motion a plan to give polio vaccine to all the children in the world. In 1987 Rotary International Rotary leaders went to the World Health Organization and said “We have over a million volunteers and US$247 million and we want to eradicate polio”. The outcome was that Rotary International, The World Health Organization, UNICEF, and The US Centers for Disease Control became partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI). In 2007 the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation joined GPEI and to date have contributed over US$5 billion to the cause. 

Polio is still endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan but with a total of only 12 cases in 2023 it is envisaged that complete eradication of the polio virus will be very soon.

So what have purple crocus to do with all this? Well, when health workers go into remote areas to administer the vaccine they need to know which children have, or have not, had the vaccine, so after receiving the oral vaccine the child’s finger is dipped into a purple dye, which is what the colour of the crocus represents.

The 23rd February is the birthday of Rotary and is usually around the same time as crocus bloom in the UK in celebration of the occasion.

Click on this link Polio - The Basics to find out more and, if you wish, donate to the final stage of the eradication of polio.