Last Friday 23 February 24, was the 119th birthday of Rotary. District have suggested that a great way to celebrate would be to donate to Rotary’s number one humanitarian priority, the eradication of polio.

Rotary Melbourne suggest that you consider donating by visiting the Rotary International site, by clicking on Donate and selecting PolioPlus Fund.

We all know what a remarkable success story Rotary’s polio eradication project has been. To briefly recap:

• Rotary International made the eradication of polio its number one priority in 1979.
• At that point there were an estimated 350,000 cases of polio, in 125 countries.
• There are now only two countries with endemic polio – Afghanistan and Pakistan, where there are only a handful of cases a year. Afghanistan plummeted from 54 cases in 2020 to only 4 cases in 2021.
• In Pakistan, eradication seems to be close. 17 cases of wild polio were recorded in the country during the first eight months of 2022, compared to 84 in 2020.
• It has been estimated that if we were to pull back on immunisations, we could see 200,000 children paralysed by polio a year in a decade.

So, the battle is not quite won yet, as polio has not been eradicated.

The Club, and District, raised a lot of money to this cause as part of the End Polio Walk in October last year. Sixty-five individual walkers within District 9800 raised $47,000. Rotary Melbourne Past President Robert Fisher walked over 250km in October with sponsorship of over $5,000.

Please consider making a donation this week.

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