Prime Minister of India S. Manmohan Singh shall be inaugurating the Polio Summit that opens tomorrow at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi.
It is for the first time that a joint summit by Government of India and Rotary International is being organised.
This is a significant event for all the Rotarians...and in fact, the entire humanity on this planet.
In India we have just completed one year when not a single polio case has been registered.
Overall, the annual number of polio cases have diminished by more than 99 percent since the initiative was launched by Rotary in 1988, when polio infected about 3,50,000 children every year.
Through Rotary efforts and active participation of the governments around the world, more than two billion children have been immunized in 122 countries, preventing five million cases of paralysis and 2,50,000 deaths.
At this stage, today, we require much more concerted endeavours to keep the status-quo...maintain the zero polio-case level, which alone can ensure a polio-free world for our children.
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