At the end of the 1980s, more than 350,000 children were paralyzed 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 for polio eradication (at a cost of $150 million per year), IMPROVE disease surveillance systems to detect any poliovirus in a person or the environment and HIRE
more than 150,000 health workers to go door to door to find every child

We appeal for your donation towards the Rotary Club of Knights Pendragon’s annual collection for this international project. For each $1 that the club contributes, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will contribute a further $2 towards taking this important project to its conclusion. As such, your donation will be multiplied and have a greater impact in supporting this project than you may have contemplated.

YOUR DONATION:

1. WILL IMPROVE LIVES

Today, 19 million people who would otherwise be paralyzed by polio are walking, and 1.5 million people who would otherwise have died are alive.

2. IS AN INVESTMENT IN THE FUTURE.

If all eradication efforts stopped today, within 10 years, polio could paralyze as many as 200,000 children each year. A polio-free world will be a healthier world for children everywhere.

3. WILL IMPROVE CHILD HEALTH.

Polio surveillance networks and vaccination campaigns also monitor children for other health problems, like vitamin deficiency and measles, so we can address them sooner.

4. WILL LOWER HEALTH CARE COSTS.

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. WILL MAKE HISTORY.

Polio eradication will be one of history’s greatest public health achievements, with polio following smallpox to become only the second human disease eradicated from the world.