This is a special time of the year for Rotarians, as October was Polio Awareness Month and October 24 was World Polio Day. In 1985, Rotarians promised the children of the world that we would eradicate polio. On the day that we made that promise, there were 125 countries on 5 continents that were polio-endemic, and during the year of 1985, more than 350,000 children—nearly 1,000 children every single day—were paralyzed by or died as a result of the polio virus. But since 1985, Rotarians have contributed more than $3 billion to polio eradication efforts and helped protect more than 3 billion children in 122 countries from the disease.
Rotarians have not only helped purchase the vaccine but have also helped distribute it. The last bastion of polio in the Western Hemisphere was eradicated in 1994 when Rotary volunteers went door to door in the slums of Peru to make sure that every single child had been vaccinated. The last bastion of polio in the Western Pacific and Asia was eradicated in 1997 when Rotary volunteers went boat to boat along the Mekong River in Cambodia to make sure that every single child had been vaccinated. Europe eradicated polio in 1998.
In 2003, India launched what was then the largest-ever mass immunization campaign against polio, immunizing more than 165 million children in just six days. Rotary International was one of the major partners supporting the effort. In 2014, after India went three years without a case of polio caused by the wild poliovirus, the World Health Organization certified its South-East Asia Region polio-free. In 2020, another historic milestone was reached when the World Health Organization certified the African Region free of wild poliovirus, an achievement made possible in large part through the efforts of Rotary members and our global partners.
Today, only two countries remain polio-endemic (Afghanistan and Pakistan), and the World Health Organization estimates that there are now more than 20 million children who today are alive and healthy and running and playing with their friends but who would have been paralyzed by polio but for Rotary’s polio eradication efforts. Imagine 20 million children on crutches, in wheelchairs, their leg muscles withered by the polio virus, and then imagine that we had the ability to tell them, “Throw away your crutches. Throw away your wheelchairs. We are Rotarians. And because we are Rotarians, you will not be paralyzed by polio.” That’s the effect of what we as Rotarians have accomplished in the fight to eradicate polio.
What Rotarians have accomplished in the fight to eradicate polio is extraordinary. But this is about more than just eradicating polio. Rotary’s polio eradication program is called PolioPlus. It’s called PolioPlus because the polio vaccine is most often given in conjunction with or in coordination with vitamin supplements and with vaccines for measles, tuberculosis, diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus.
The vitamin supplements alone have saved the lives of more than 4 million children. Since 1985, the number of deaths from measles has dropped from more than 2 million a year worldwide to fewer than 100,000 a year worldwide. We’ve seen similar declines in the number of deaths from tuberculosis, diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus.
In 2014, the west coast of Africa experienced an Ebola pandemic. The Ebola virus is very contagious and very deadly. Fifty percent of the people who contract the Ebola virus will die from the virus. At the beginning of the pandemic, many health care experts predicted hundreds of thousands of deaths. Some predicted millions of deaths. But when all was said and done, fewer than 14,000 people died during that pandemic. The primary reason the Ebola virus was so well contained, according to the World Health Organization, is because of the surveillance and distribution systems that are in place today as part of Rotary’s PolioPlus program.
In recognition of World Polio Day, the Gates Foundation continues to match every dollar Rotary raises for polio eradication with two additional dollars, up to $50 million in Rotary contributions each year.
Let’s finish the job that we started in 1985 so that someday soon we can celebrate the fact that polio has been eradicated and so that someday soon we can celebrate the fact that no child will ever again be paralyzed by polio.
Randy Sproule is a member of Madison South Rotary. His father contracted polio at the age of four, was bedridden for six months and dealt with the effects of polio for the rest of his life.