Rotary in action § In 1999, more than 100,000 Indian Rotary members and their families joined the government of India in immunizing more than 130 million children on one day, signaling the largest public health event ever in the world. § In 1996 and 1997, Rotarians in Angola led a campaign to solicit corporate jets, helicopters, and vehicles to move vaccine through Angola's land mine-infested countryside. Additional volunteers mobilized by a single Rotary club helped the government reach 80 percent of its target population of children under five years of age. § During the late 1980s, 11,000 Rotarians in Peru volunteered in a massive drive to eliminate the virus in one of the last South American countries in which polio still existed. Rotary volunteers assisted national health care workers in door-to-door immunization drives, transporting health care workers to remote vaccination centers, analyzing data, and publicizing the immunization days to raise awareness of the final assault against the crippling disease. § In countries where there are no Rotary clubs, like Somalia, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam, the PolioPlus program not only funded vaccines and promotional materials for National Immunization Days, it also provided on-site volunteer assistance from neighboring countries to assist national authorities in carrying out eradication exercises. § After extensive efforts to eradicate polio in Cambodia, health officials tracked the remaining pockets of polio to children living on the waterways, who had been missed by the previously held National Immunization Days. Rotary volunteers joined health officials in a boat-to-boat follow-up campaign to successfully reach this population and wipe out the virus. § In many developing countries, methods of communication vary from street plays to parades. Rotary members in India and Pakistan performed street dramas and organized rallies to educate parents about the need to immunize their children against polio.

Facts and figures  § As of 1 July 1999, Rotary International has committed US$340 million for global polio eradication. § By the year 2005, Rotary's contributions to the global polio eradication effort will be approximately a half billion dollars. § Rotary members around the world serve as a powerful volunteer army at the local level providing support at clinics and mobilizing their communities for immunization or other polio eradication activities. To date, more than one million Rotarians worldwide have contributed toward the success of the polio eradication effort. § Since 1 July 1999, 120 nations around the world have benefited from PolioPlus grants for polio immunization and eradication efforts. § Due to the polio eradication initiative of the last decade, approximately three million children who might have been polio victims are walking and playing normally. § More than 500,000 cases of polio are now prevented each year by the efforts of national governments and the partnership of the World Health Organization (WHO), Rotary International, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the overseas development agencies of donor nations. § Since 1985, over one billion children have received oral polio vaccine and are successfully protected from poliomyelitis. § During 74 National Immunization Days, 16 Sub-National Immunization Days and 7 "Mopping-up" activities conducted in 1998, more than 450 million children received oral polio vaccine. This represents nearly 75 percent of all the world's children under age five. § Since Rotary began its PolioPlus Program, the number of polio endemic countries has declined from 100 in 1985 to 48 in mid-1999. § In 1998, approximately 6,000 polio cases were reported. The World Health Organization reports a slight increase in the number of cases from 1997, representing significant improvement in identifying cases of polio. § A child can be protected against polio for as little as US$ .50 worth of vaccine. § Rotary has committed more than US$100 million for polio eradication in Africa. § Total funds committed for polio eradication in Asia and the Western Pacific is in excess of US$125 million. § The World Health Organization estimates that US$1 billion is needed from donors for the period 1999-2005 to eradicate polio. The need will peak in the period 1999 through 2000. § The annual global savings from polio eradication will be approximately US$1.5 billion. This amount is the estimated cost of routine immunization alone, and does not include the cost of treatment and rehabilitation of polio victims, nor the immeasurable price paid in human suffering by polio victims and their families. § Rotary's Polio Eradication Advocacy Task Force has played a major role in decisions by donor governments in polio-free countries to contribute more than US$700 million for the eradication efforts in polio-endemic countries. § Rotary is engaged in a coalition to advocate for increased contributions by the US Government to global polio eradication. The coalition includes Rotary International, Task Force for Child Survival and Development, US Committee for UNICEF, American Academy of Pediatrics and the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation.

    Donations for Polio Plus can be made through the Rotary Club of Culver City, P.O. Box 99, Culver City, CA 90232  or directly to Rotary Foundation headquarters, 1560 Sherman Avenue, Evanston IL 60201.