African regions declared free of wild polio virus

25th Aug 2020: The World Health Organization declares Africa polio free

Global eradication of wild polio is possible with the continued dedication and persistence of Rotarians:
African regions declared free of wild polio virus

Rotary has been working to eradicate polio for nearly 40 years. Our goal of ridding the disease is closer than ever.

As a founder of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, we’ve reduced polio cases by 99.9% since our first project to vaccinate children in the Philippines in 1979.

We’ve helped immunize more that 2.5 billion children in 122 countries. So far Rotary has contributed more that $890 million dollars in African regions towards eradicating

The disease and now polio has been wiped out of Africa.

Polio remains endemic in only Afghanistan and Pakistan and it is crucial to continue working to keep other countries polio free. If all the eradication efforts stopped today, within 10 years polio could paralyze as many as 200,000 children each year.