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A Brief History of Rotary International’s PolioPlus Program

We have been asked to raise $1,000,000 in our District for Polio Eradication.  In order to achieve our goal, I think it is important to understand how far we have come in the fight to eradicate polio from the face of the earth.

Rotary’s involvement in polio began in 1979 with a five-year commitment to provide and help deliver polio vaccine to six million children of the Philippines and was funded with a grant from Rotary International’s 75^th Anniversary Fund.  In the next four years, similar five-year commitments were approved for Haiti, Bolivia, Morocco, Sierra Leone, and Cambodia.

In the early 1980’s Rotary began planning for the most ambitious program in its history – to immunize all the children of the world against polio.  The plan envisioned collaboration with international, national and local health agencies to carry out this dream.

With the advice and support of the late Dr. Albert Sabin, Rotary established its PolioPlus program in 1985.  Rotary’s pledge of $120 million to fund its program electrified the global health community.  Within three years, Rotarians had more than doubled their goal, raising $247 million.

From 1986 to 1989, a Rotary International Immunization Task Force fanned out around the world, creating Rotary national volunteer corps in more than 90 countries and linking these corps to health ministries and to global partners such as the World Health Organization and UNICEF.  These volunteers applied business resources and know-how to help health workers overcome the obstacles to vaccine delivery and to help maintain vigilance against polio outbreaks.

Because of the success of the National Immunization Day (NID) strategy in the Americas and other countries, 166 nations committed themselves at the World Health Assembly in 1988 to the goal of polio eradication by the year 2000.  Tremendous progress was then made in the next 12 years as the number of cases was reduced by 99% and the Western Hemisphere, Western Pacific and Europe became polio-free. 

But because of civil conflict, inadequate funding, weak health infrastructures, and other obstacles, 20 countries still had transmission of the polio virus at the end of 2000.  And now, only 10 countries remain polio endemic.

Rotary’s role in polio eradication has evolved over the past two decades.   In the early days, Rotary was a catalyst, providing money for vaccine and volunteer help.  In 1995, Rotary launched an international task force to advocate the cause of polio eradication to donor governments, resulting in more that $1.5 billion in polio-specific grants from the public sector.  In 2000, Rotary teamed with the United Nations Foundation to carry an appeal to the private sector – foundations, corporations and wealthy individuals – raising over $100 million. 

As the war on polio enters its final phases, adequate funding is the number one obstacle to achieving a polio-free world by 2005, Rotary’s 100^th Anniversary.

Therefore, the Polio Eradication Campaign, announced in February, 2002, seeks to raise $80 million as a contribution to the funding gap, estimated at $225 million in May, 2002.

The PolioPlus program is unlike any other program in Rotary’s 97-year history.  Its financial commitment is now well over $500 million.  The value of Rotarians’ personal involvement cannot be calculated.  Rotarians have delivered vaccine by camels, helicopters, trucks and motorbikes, staffed immunization posts throughout the world, raised community awareness of the value of immunization, and, in the process, have helped to mobilize 10 million volunteers.

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative is recognized worldwide today as a model of public/private cooperation in pursuit of a humanitarian goal.  WHO Director, General Gro Harlem Brundtland, recently praised Rotarians as the first with the vision of a polio-free world and the people with the resolve to see the job done.

Please do not fail to fulfill our promise to the children of the world.  Give all you can to the Polio Eradication Campaign and celebrate a polio-free world at the Rotary International 100^th Birthday party in Chicago in 2005.

Holly Callen
District 5950 Polio Eradication Chair

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