On September 24th, RI President Jennifer Jones announced a $150 million pledge towards polio eradication. Inspired by recent outbreaks in New York state, the inability to fully carry on Rotary's National Immunization Days around the world and the commitment from Rotarians to eliminating this disease, the additional funding will go to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, which said in August that it was seeking new funding commitments for its 2022-26 polio eradication strategy. "We want this to be the start of a massive effort to reach the Initiative's US$4.8 billion funding goal," Jones said.
Rotary members have been at the center of the worldwide effort to eradicate polio for more than three decades. Rotary launched its PolioPlus program in 1985. In 1988. there were an estimated 350,000 polio cases across more than 125 countries in one year. Since then, cases have plummeted more than 99.9%, sparing more than 20 million people from paralysis. Rotary has helped immunize nearly 3 billion children against polio, contributed more than US$2.6 billion to global polio eradication efforts, and helped secure more than US$10 billion from donor governments. Click here to read more.