As we prepare for World Polio Day on 24 October 2022, here are the Top 5 Reasons to End Polio Now.

Article by PDG Murray Verso, End Polio Now Coordinator

With World Polio Day nearly upon us, it is timely to consider why Rotary, and its partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), are trying so hard to eradicate this disease worldwide. Here are five reasons why:

1. To Improve Lives
Today, 19 million people who would otherwise be paralysed by polio are walking, and 1.5 million people who would otherwise have died are alive.
2. To Invest in the future
If all eradication efforts stopped today, within 10 years, polio could paralyse as many as 200,000 children each year. A polio-free world will be a healthier world for children everywhere
3. To Improve Child Health
Polio surveillance networks and vaccination campaigns also monitor children for other health problems like vitamin deficiency and measles, so they can be addressed sooner.
4. To Save Money
The global effort to eradicate polio has already saved more than $27 billion in health care costs since 1988, and expects to save $14 billion more by 2050.
5. To Make History
Polio eradication would be one of history's greatest public health achievements, with polio following smallpox to become only the second human disease eliminated from the world.

At the end of the 1980s, more than 350,000 children were paralysed by polio every year. Today, Rotary and its partners have reduced the incidence of polio by 99.9 percent. However, until we see the last of the poliovirus, eradication efforts need additional funding to:

• IMMUNIZE more than 400 million children against polio every year.
• IMPROVE disease surveillance systems to detect any poliovirus in a person or the environment.
• HIRE more than 150,000 health workers to go door to door to find every child.

To end polio, we must stop transmission of the virus in the two countries where it remains endemic, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and we must stop the virus spreading to other countries as it has done this year with cases of wild polio in Malawi and Mozambique. We must keep all countries polio-free until we're certain it won't resurface. This month is a good time to discuss with your fellow Rotary members why we need to end polio. Learn more at End Polio Now and Donate to End Polio .