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WE ARE "THIS CLOSE"
After more than 20 years of hard work, Rotary and its partners
are on the brink of eradicating this tenacious disease,
but a strong push is needed now to root it out once and for all.
It is a window of opportunity of historic proportions.
are on the brink of eradicating this tenacious disease,
but a strong push is needed now to root it out once and for all.
It is a window of opportunity of historic proportions.
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Rotary must raise $200 million to match $355 million in challenge grants received from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The resulting $555 million will directly support immunization campaigns in developing countries,
where polio continues to infect and paralyze children, robbing them of their futures and compounding the hardships faced by their families.
As long as polio threatens even one child anywhere in the world, children everywhere remain at risk. The stakes are that high.
"If we all have the fortitude to see this effort through to the end, then we will eradicate polio."
Bill Gates, at the RI 2011 Convention in New Orleans
District 5910 Governor Rose and Mike Berger of the Rotary Club of Lake Conroe traveled to India in February of 2011 to participate in a National Immunization Day. They helped to immunize children against polio - a crippling disease that still paralyzes and sometimes kills children in parts of the world. They were part of a 30-member team. Governor Rose and Mike joined other volunteers and health workers to administer drops of oral polio vaccine during an immunization campaign that targeted millions of children under age five. They walked door to door to ensure that every child was reached.
Tremendous progress has been made overall in India, with more than 95% of children regularly reached during vaccination campaigns. This year, India's polio eradication effort continued to make strides, having decreased polio cases more than 90%, from the previous year, reporting just 42 cases in 2010.
Since 1985, Rotary has contributed approximately one billion dollars to help immunize 2 billion children in 122 countries. In addition to administering the polio vaccine, the team thanked our partners for their many years of
work in the fight against polio: the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the Center for Disease Control.
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