World Polio Day 2024 – a chance for reflection and a reminder to reach every last childThursday 24 October marks the annual World Polio Day, a chance for public and civil society partners to raise awareness and resources for the global effort to eradicate polio.
Rotary International and Rotarians around the world are using the day as an opportunity to showcase the current status of the eradication effort, and what steps need to be taken to ultimately achieve a lasting world free of all polioviruses.
2024 is a special year for the eradication effort. An outbreak of variant poliovirus type 2 in Gaza has drawn the world’s attention on the reality that as long as polio exists anywhere, all countries will remain at risk.
But the outbreak in Gaza has also shown something else: the incredible global commitment to achieving a polio-free world. Against all odds, in September and October, two rounds of outbreak response were implemented in Gaza, each time reaching well over half a million children with the lifesaving polio vaccine and other health interventions. If it can be achieved here, amid all the challenges the people of Gaza currently face, it can be achieved everywhere.
That is why this year’s World Polio Day is perhaps an opportunity not just to celebrate progress: but indeed, to re-garner support and commitment at all levels to finish the job once and for all.
Because the reality is: there are no technical, medical or biological reasons why polio should persist anywhere in the world today. Polio can be eradicated, there is no question about that. And it will be eradicated on the very day that we finally reach the remaining un- or under-vaccinated children in a few remaining endemic hotspots. Not a day earlier… nor a day later.
Let us therefore focus all our efforts on that one goal: to reach and vaccinate every last child. Success will then follow automatically.
Rotary projects around the globe
Colombia
Sonia Uribe a
nd her husband, Alberto Londoño, created a stuffed animal collection called El Zoo del Amor, or the Zoo of Love, to comfort seriously ill children and raise money for polio eradication. Sales of Anna the giraffe, Lucas the tiger, and other animals — each wearing a shirt with Rotary and End Polio Now logos — have raised about $550,000 since their introduction in 2018. In addition to giving the animals to sick children, Rotarians carry them on their travels and snap photos of them at iconic landmarks. “All these animals have traveled, being ambassadors of the Rotary brand,” says Uribe, a member of the Rotary Club of Nuevo Medellín and, like Londoño, a past governor of District 4271. Londoño is a member of the Rotary Club of Medellín Nutibara. The couple also manage the Fundación Monica Uribe Por Amor, which assists children with spina bifida.
United States
The Rotary Club of Scranton, Pennsylvania, is helping a new generation learn about polio. Students from Dunmore High School have created a documentary based on interviews conducted during a polio and health policy symposium that the club and District 7410 organized for World Polio Day 2023. The film features interviews with International PolioPlus Committee Chair Michael McGovern, other Rotarians, and symposium attendees, and is scheduled for broadcast during the club’s World Polio Day events this month. “It is hard to get hands-on with history,” says Alan Roche, a Dunmore teacher who enlisted about 40 students to produce the video, which includes interviews with three local polio survivors, one of whom taught at the high school. The project was an eye-opener for the young people, he says. “It’s usually a page or two in the textbook, a blip in a slideshow,” Roche says. “It’s one thing to just learn about this and another to talk to someone who was affected by it and lives in your hometown.”
France
More than a dozen Rotarians and friends in southeastern France donned inflatable dinosaur costumes and stumbled along a 100-meter course in a playful footrace that raised funds and awareness for Rotary’s mission to end polio. Organized by District 1730, the T-Rex Race took place last October during the Fréjus International Air Festival, a kite fair that draws thousands of people. “The idea came to me to create an event to rejuvenate the image of Rotary in the fight against polio,” says Dinh Hoan Tran, the district’s immediate past governor and member of the Rotary Club of Nice. Spectators could place bets on the contestants. “We made people laugh and we informed people,” says Tran. More than 40 of the district’s 71 clubs participated in the event, as the district motivated clubs to “support PolioPlus to the tune of about $45,000,” he says.
South Africa
To draw attention to the need for vigilance and vaccinations, the Rotary Club of Newlands assembled Rotary members and others for a World Polio Day photo shoot with the landmark Table Mountain in the background. On the day of the shoot, however, a heavy mist enveloped the site. “We made the best of it, chatting and taking selfies, until eventually the sun came out,” says Past President Janey Ball. She used RI’s polio resources toolkit to create artwork for selfie frames and set up a Facebook event called Make Polio History to record the pictures and raise awareness. To encourage Rotary members, Ball suggested using the slogan “focus on the finish.” “The selfie frames have been in continuous use since the event, moving from one club to another,” she says.