Call to Action for World Polio Day

October 24, 2012 World Polio Day:

While polio cases have declined rapidly, the fight isn't over.

When Rotary first started the fight against polio in 1985, the disease affected 350,000 people every year in 125 countries. Since then, polio has been reduced by 99%. We are “This Close” to ending polio.

Fewer than 700 new polio cases were reported in 2011 and only three countries have never stopped the disease. For a little as US$0.60, a child can be protected against polio for life.

If we don't finish the fight right now, more than 10 million children under the age of five could be paralyzed by polio in the next 40 years.

Rotary and its partners – The World Health Organization, UNICEF, CDC and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation - have reached more than 2.5 billion children with the oral polio vaccine, preventing more than five million cases of paralysis and hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Polio will be only the second human disease in history -after smallpox- to be eradicated worldwide. Ending polio forever is a critical step toward protecting all children from vaccine-preventable diseases.  A win against polio is a win for global health.

Lets make history together.

Learn more about ending polio and take action at www.endpolionow.org