The making of a polio-free India

Abstract

Rotary one of the largest Non-Government International Organization focused mainly towards the up-liftment of the downtrodden worldwide, got involved in the Polio Eradication Program way back in 1979 with a five-year pledge to immunize about six million Philippine children from the crippling disease of Poliomyelitis. By 1982, Rotary committed itself to implement the most ambitious program ever, “to immunize all the world’s children against polio by 2005-Rotary’s first birth centenary year. Encouraged by Rotary’s commitment towards this objective, the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted a resolution of eradicating polio, as part of the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI). The World Health Assembly in 1988, in which Governments of over 100 countries including the Government of India resolved to eradicate polio, recognized Rotary International as the key non-government, private partner on the global team. Ever since Rotary has been providing financial assistance to national governments for the purchase of Oral Polio Vaccine and conducting the highest level of advocacy efforts to see that soon polio is eradicated globally. Rotary called its Polio Eradication Initiative “Polio Plus Program” and focused primarily on social mobilization and voluntarism.