10/24/26
Today is World Polio Day, a time to reflect on a promise Rotary made to children four decades ago: a world free from this devastating disease. Members of our Club (pictured) joined with members of the Wheaton Rotary Club and the Carol Stream Rotary Club at Wheaton North High School as part of the worldwide World's LargestPolio Walk.
When Rotary and our partners launched the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) in 1988, polio paralyzed hundreds of thousands of children each year. Since then, Rotary members, donors, our partners, and health workers have helped reduce polio cases by more than 99.9%. This progress was made possible by people who chose to act. As the world marks , wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) remains endemic only in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Frontline synchronized campaigns reached 57 million children across both countries, and over the past year, Rotary-supported initiatives successfully delivered oral vaccines to 300 million children worldwide. Rotary's total historical contribution through its Polio Plus Program has surpassed $2.9 billion, leveraging an additional $11 billion from global governments.
The cost of stopping: GPEI modeling emphasizes that if eradication efforts were abandoned today, the virus could rebound rapidly, paralyzing up to 200,000 children annually within a decade.