Rotary is an international community that brings together leaders who step up to take on the world’s toughest challenges, locally and globally. The eradication of polio is one of our longest-standing and most significant efforts. Along with our partners, we have helped immunize more than 2.5 billion children against polio in 122 countries. We have reduced polio cases by 99.9 percent worldwide and we won’t stop until we end the disease for good.

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Rotary International began its fight against polio in 1979 with a multi-year project to immunize 6 million children in the Philippines. Rotary International launched PolioPlus in 1985, the first and largest internationally coordinated private-sector support of a public health initiative, with an initial fundraising target of US$120 million.

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To date, there is just a handful of polio cases in the world and those cases are in Pakistan and Afghanistan. We are so close. . .