Rotary International Builds
Partnership for Better World Health

Poliomyelitis was once a parent's worst nightmare. A healthy child could suddenly be stricken with fever and pain in the limbs, paralyzed within only a matter of hours. When one child was diagnosed with the highly infectious viral disease, dread swept through a community that other children might also succumb. If children survived death, lifelong disability remained a probable outcome.

Dr. Jonas Salk became an international hero when he developed the first vaccine against the disease in the 1950s. Its use to immunize young children quickly became commonplace in the developed world.

Comprehensive, inclusive vaccination programs did not come to the developing world so quickly. In 1985, Rotary International created PolioPlus, setting a goal to protect all the world's children and eradicate polio by 2005, the 100th anniversary of Rotary's founding. We were the first to have the vision of a polio-free world.

As the world's first and one of its largest non-profit service organizations, Rotary members brought considerable human resources to the challenge -- 1.2 million members working in over 30,100 clubs in 163 countries. The women and men of Rotary are business and professional leaders who initiate community projects that address many of today's most critical issues such as violence, AIDS, hunger, the environment, and health care.

Prestigious partners joined in the campaign against polio. The World Health Organization (WHO), Rotary, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and many donor governments around the world formed the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI).

The results have been significant. In the late 1980s, an estimated 350,000 cases of the disease occurred each year. In 2000, only 3,500 cases were reported worldwide, a 99 percent decrease. The disease appeared in 125 countries at the beginning of the GPEI and now circulates in no more than 20 countries, mainly in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

Eradicating the last traces of the disease may be the most difficult challenge. The GPEI strives to maintain political commitment while the polio threat has diminished, and to reach children in the most isolated places, many torn by civil unrest and active conflict.

But perhaps most threatening to the program is the lack of funds needed to eradicate this crippling disease. The GPEI estimates that a total of $1,000 million is required between 2001-2005 to ensure delivery of more than 6,000 million doses of oral polio vaccine to 600 million children around the world. Of this amount, $600 million has already been pledged, leaving a $400 million gap. Half of those funds are urgently required before the end of 2002.

To help meet this funding challenge, Rotary and the United Nations Foundation are collaborating to secure funds from the private sector, philanthropists, and foundations.

This challenge is not out of reach with support from the many committed members who offer their time, compassion, and professional expertise to work for the health of children everywhere. Through its public advocacy efforts, Rotary has played a major role in the decisions by donor governments to contribute more than $1,000 million to polio eradication since the effort began.

The campaign has made significant progress in West and Central Africa in 2001. During synchronized National Immunization Days (NIDs) in July, 15 million children under five were immunized in Central Africa. In West Africa, NIDs have been underway in the final quarter of the year as 16 nations renewed their commitment to eliminate the crippling virus. Their goal has been to give oral polio vaccine to 80 million children.

The political commitment to this ambitious endeavor came from the highest levels as leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) signed the Lungi Declaration in that Sierra Leonean city, pledging regional support to the eradication of polio.

In Lungi, at the launch of the effort, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said, "If we eliminate polio in Sierra Leone, but we don't in Nigeria, we are not safe. If we eliminate polio in Mali, but we don't in Burkina Faso, we are not safe. That is why all of West Africa must work together to eradicate this disease."

Earlier in the year, an NID event was also held in India, currently the country with the single greatest occurrence of polio cases. In the largest public health event ever organized in the world, 152 million children were immunized against the virus with the participation of 100,000 Rotary members joined by their friends and families.

Rotary clubs play a key role in readying a region for an NID. Members prepare and distribute a variety of mass communication tools to inform parents of an upcoming vaccination program, even those families isolated by conflict, geography, or poverty. During an NID, Rotarians work side-by-side with public health workers as they administer the oral polio vaccine. Depending on the needs of a given area, Rotary members will create extensive maps, locating every village as a destination for the immunization teams. They go house-to-house, to markets, and refugee camps. They paddle pirogues to tiny islands, and set up immunization posts at national borders to reach any vulnerable child.

Rotary volunteers also help authorities locate the proper cold storage facilities, and transport the vaccine to every immunization post. They pack lunch boxes, organize distribution teams, and transport meals to health workers at immunization centers. They have solicited corporate jets, helicopters, and vehicles to help transport vaccine to the most isolated places where it is needed.

Millions of other volunteers mobilized by Rotary have given their time to the polio vaccination campaign over the years. In addition to mobilizing these considerable human resources, Rotary has contributed approximately $438 million to the effort, a figure that will grow to $500 million by 2005.

Protecting children from a crippling virus brings its own rewards today and provides greater assurance that children can thrive to become productive world citizens.

As the years of this campaign have unfolded, and the eradication of this terrible disease comes within our reach, it appears that Rotary's work with so many governments and public health agencies around the world may reap another dividend. Members involved in this campaign have lent their own community standing to the cause. In mobilizing our communities for an NID, we have helped raise community awareness about public health in even the smallest villages and towns. We have helped educate parents about the threat of disease and the importance of vaccination. And we've helped to educate tribal leaders and warring factions that conflict of the moment should be set aside to ensure that children can be protected from disease. That is why President Ouman Konare of Mali called the NIDs a "lever for peace" as the Lungi Declaration was signed.

Rotary has helped build a collective conscience worldwide for improving the health of the human family. While parents of the developed world see their own children and grandchildren in good health, Rotary has helped remind them that other loving parents in lands far away may not be able to share the same confidence of good health that their children enjoy.

U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher has said of our PolioPlus program, "The future of public health depends upon our ability to develop growing partnerships, especially public/private partnerships. Of all the partnerships that we developed while I was at the CDC, and had an opportunity to work with, none has been more impressive than the partnership with Rotary International and the other partners throughout the world working on the global eradication of polio."

The world stands firmly on the threshold of victory. Thanks to the achievements of the last two decades, over two billion children have received the oral polio vaccine and are successfully protected against the disease. It is estimated that four million children who might have been polio victims are today playing and walking normally due to the efforts of Rotary and our global partners.

It is our hope that the lessons learned through PolioPlus and its comprehensive strategy will be applied again and again when fighting other diseases. That will be our legacy for future generations.

What finer gift for the children of the world?

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