Oct. 23, 2026
Brevard Beagle Editor Jonathan Rich and Rotary Club of Pisgah Forest President Lynn Bartosh during the fall purple pinkie painting at Brevard College.
Rotary Club of Pisgah Forest
Polio is an intestinal virus that is spread from person to person through contaminated water. The disease can attack the nervous system can causing paralysis. There is no cure, but the vaccines are safe and effective.
In the 1980s, more than 350,000 children were paralyzed by polio each year. Today Rotary International and its partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative have reduced the incidence by 99.9%.
If eradication efforts stop now, within 10 years polio may spread and more than 200,000 children could be paralyzed each year.
Rotary International has been working to eradicate polio for more than 45 years. Rotary’s first polio project was to vaccinate children in the Philippines in 1979. Inspired by that successful vaccination campaign, Rotary went on to become a founding partner of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988, which has reduced polio cases around the world by 99.9 percent.
Thanks to the generosity and commitment of its members, Rotary has contributed more than US$2.9 billion in PolioPlus grants and countless volunteer hours to protect more than 3 billion children in 122 countries from this disease. Rotary’s advocacy efforts have played a role in decisions by governments to contribute more than $11 billion to the effort.
What does the Global Polio Eradication Initiative do?
* Immunize more than 400 million children against polio every year.
* Improve disease surveillance to detect the virus in people, contaminated water, and the environment.
* Hire hundreds of thousands of health workers to go door to door to find every child. They build trust in the people by helping with other needs like nutrition.
What can you do?
• Increase awareness by talking with others about polio and the importance of continued eradication efforts.
• Contribute to the fight against polio by donating to www.endpolio.org on Saturday, Oct 24, which is also known as World Polio Day.
Donations are matched 2:1 by the Gates Foundation. A donation of $25 becomes a total contribution of $75 for polio research and awareness.