The fight against polio started back in 1953. American research Jonas Salk discovered a vaccine for the debilitating disease that targeted children.

Australia had just experienced it’s own epidemic. About 10,000 people were being diagnosed every year.

A couple of years later, we started to use the vaccine. By the end of that decade we had almost conquered the disease in Australia.

In 1988 a partnership with the World Health Organisation, UNICEF, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and Rotary was created with a bold attempt to eradicate polio. Not just in one or two countries, but the world.

Completely eliminating a disease had only been achieved once before. Smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980. The last known case was in Somalia in 1977.

In 2007 the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation joined the fight. In 2013, the world was so close to be eradicated of polio. So the foundation announced that every dollar raised by Rotary would be matched two to one.

Since the fight against polio started, the number of cases has dropped by 99.9 per cent. More than 2.5 billion children have received the vaccine.

There is not a cure for polio. If polio is not eradicated it has the potential to spread in the blink of an eye.

Health care costs would rise and the quality of life for children would be reduced significantly. 

The End Polio Now initiative says a polio-free world would save the global economy about $40-50 billion in health costs during the next 20 years.

The 12 cases of polio reported this year were from Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2016 there were 37 cases reported. 

Before this initiative started in the 1980s there were about 1000 cases reported every day. The cases of polio are now found in areas of geographical isolation, armed conflict and cultural barriers.

But, we’re so close to eradicating this debilitating disease. And it’s one of those global actions that everyone has been involved in.

That sausage you purchased at the Rotary barbecue, the community event you attended or raffle ticket you purchased for End Polio Now has contributed to what will be a historic event.