Despite a stagnant global economy, Rotary clubs around the world have succeeded in raising
more than US$200 million in new funding for polio eradication. The
fundraising milestone, announced today at
Rotary’s annual International Assembly in San Diego, was reached in
response to a $355 million challenge grant from the Bill & Melinda
Gates
Foundation. All funds have been earmarked to support polio immunization
activities in countries where this vaccine-preventable disease continues
to
paralyze children. “We’ll
celebrate this milestone, but it doesn’t mean that we’ll stop
raising money or spreading the word about polio eradication,” Rotary
Foundation Trustee John F. Germ told the annual conference of Rotary
leaders. “We can’t stop until our entire world is certified as polio
free.” “In
recognition
of Rotary’s great work, and to inspire Rotarians in the future, the
[Gates] foundation is committing an additional $50 million
to extend our partnership,” said Jeff Raikes, chief executive officer of
the Gates Foundation. “Rotary started the global fight against
polio, and continues to set the tone for private fundraising, grassroots
engagement and maintaining polio at the top of the agenda with key
policy
makers.” Since
1988, the incidence of polio has plummeted by more than 99 percent,
from about 350,000
infections annually to fewer than 650 cases reported so far for 2011.
The wild poliovirus now remains endemic – meaning its transmission has
never been stopped – in only four countries: Afghanistan, India,
Nigeria, and Pakistan. However, India on January 13 marked a full
calendar year
without a case, paving the way for its removal from the endemic list. But
other countries also remain at risk for polio
cases imported from the endemic countries. In Africa in 2011, Chad and
the Democratic Republic of the Congo had significant outbreaks. Also in
2011, a small cluster of polio cases in China, which had been polio-free
for a decade, was attributable to a virus from
Pakistan. Rotary
members not only reached into their own pockets to support the Gates
challenge,but
engaged their communities in a variety of creative fundraising projects,
such as a fashion show in California that raised $52,000; benefit film
screenings in New Zealand and Australia that netted $54,000; and a
pledge-supported hike through Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, that brought in
$38,000. Many
events were planned around October 24, widely observed as World Polio
Day. To
date, Rotary club members
worldwide have contributed more than $1 billion toward the eradication
of polio, a cause Rotary took on in 1985. In 1988, the World Health
Organization, UNICEF and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention joined Rotary as spearheading partners of the Global Polio
Eradication
Initiative. More recently, the Gates Foundation has become a major
supporter. In 2007, the Gates Foundation gave Rotary a $100 million
challenge grant
for polio eradication, increasing it to $355 million in 2009. Rotary
agreed to raise $200 million in matching funds by June 30,
2012. Reaching
children with the oral polio vaccine in the
disease’s remaining strongholds is labor and resource -intensive due to a
host of challenges, including poor infrastructure, geographical
isolation, armed conflict and cultural misunderstanding about the
eradication campaign.
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