Polio Eradication - The Last Mile

Rotary started the Polio Program in 1985. Polio then was spread in more than 125 countries and 350,000 children were getting afflicted every year. For 35 years Rotarians have spent millions of hours to immunize 3 billion children, raised more than $2 billion, created social awareness and did advocacy with governments across the world, bringing down the number of cases to less than 150 in only 2 countries. They saved more than 19 million children from either dying or from getting paralyzed for life which is as impactful as averting a world war.

Millions of families across the world today live peacefully as their children will walk and play in life now and will do so for generations to come. The effort has been the biggest non-governmental volunteer initiative on a global scale to benefit global citizens and brought peace in their lives.

Partnering with WHO, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and others in the GPEI initiative; Rotary International has worked relentlessly on ground zero to make the world Polio free.

The Polio Eradication Strategic Plan 2022-2026 promises to deliver a Polio free World. The recently concluded G7 Meet in Cornwall, UK; highlighted the need for global efforts to detect public health and international surveillance on existing networks as polio surveillance.

Integrating Polio activities with other essential health services, co-designing immunization events, applying a gender equality lens to encourage more female health workers for effective outreach, more advocacy to promote greater accountability and ownership of the program, implementing innovative new tools; are some of the key action points inbuilt in the strategy.

In this pivotal movement, Rotary International pledges to walk The Last Mile, on the roadmap to securing a polio free world.

Shekhar Mehta, Rotary International President (2021-22)