By Michelle Peterson
Special to The PREVIEW
Join with the Rotary Club of Pagosa Springs on World Polio Day to donate to endpolionow.org.
We will be ringing the red kettle bells and taking donations for this important humanitarian work at the City Market shopping center from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will match $2 for every $1 donated. You can also go online to endpolionow.org to donate now.
The sixth annual World Polio Day event will take place at the College of Physicians in Philadelphia, Penn. The livestream begins at 6:30 p.m. Philadelphia time (UTC-4). Find out how you can take part in World Polio Day and watch last year’s livestream program featuring global health experts and celebrities sharing our progress on the road to polio eradication. Find out how on endpolionow.org.
By the time the world is certified polio-free, Rotary’s contributions to the global polio eradication effort will exceed $2.2 billion, including $985 million in matching funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Rotary’s contribution to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative since 1988 accounts for nearly 14 percent of all contributions through June 2017 and represents approximately 42 percent of private-sector contributions. Rotary is the leading nongovernmental voluntary organization contributor to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.
Five reasons to end polio
• Polio mainly affects children under age 5.
• There is no cure, but polio is preventable with a vaccine.
• Only three countries remain endemic.
• We’ve reduced cases by 99.9 percent since 1988.
• Until we end polio forever, every child is at risk.
Unless we eradicate polio, within 10 years we could see as many as 200,000 new cases each year, all over the world. The disease is endemic in only three countries — Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan — but unless we reach every child with the vaccine, no child anywhere is safe.
