Planting for End Polio Now

Putting their backs into it

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The purple crocus symbolises the world-wide Rotary-led campaign against Polio.

Since launching its polio eradication programme in 1985, Rotary has contributed more than $2.1 billion to fight polio, and countless volunteer hours. When the initiative was launched, there were 350,000 cases of polio every year. Today this has been reduced by 99.9 %.

Africa has recently been declared polio free, but the challenge is not over, as the virus still circulates in Pakistan and Afghanistan. For those of us who recall the horrendous death toll and iron lungs of the 1950s, this verges on the miraculous, but as we are reminded, polio is only a plane flight away. Our aim is to make the world polio free by 2026