Have you voiced your support?

Rotary created a page on the social media service Thunderclap, which enables supporters to sign up to share a single message through their social media accounts. The message will go out at a designated date and time to amplify the voice of our cause.

If we reach our goal of having 100 people add their account, our polio eradication message will be shared simultaneously across all supporting accounts on World Polio Day to raise awareness of the fight to end this crippling disease.

Visit RI's page on Thunderclap to add your voice. For more information about polio, visit www.endpolio.org.Visit RI's page on Thunderclap to add your voice. For more information about polio, visit www.endpolio.org.

How You Can Make a Difference

As we celebrate the Friendship Day, expecting that each one of you will bring along with your family, at least one friend each to our regular club meeting, you will be making a world of difference in the life of your friend...and the world around you.

Make it happen. Think of the time you were proposed by a friend of yours. Pay back with equal gusto. Bring along a friend to Monday Rotary meeting.

After all, we are all explorers...seeking the truth...to find the answers to human misery, and believing that yes, together we can make a difference. 

Despite the dramatic drop in polio cases in the last year, the threat of continued transmission due to funding and immunization gaps has driven the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) to launch the Global Polio Emergency Action Plan 2012-13.

The plan aims to boost vaccination coverage in the three remaining polio-endemic countries -- Nigeria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan -- to levels needed to stop polio transmission. Health ministers meeting at the World Health Assembly in Geneva adopted a resolution on 25 May that declared “the completion of polio eradication to be a programmatic emergency for global public health.”

Polio eradication activities have resulted in several landmark successes since 2010. India, long regarded as the nation facing the greatest challenges to eradication, was removed from the list of polio-endemic countries by the World Health Organization (WHO) in February. Outbreaks in previously polio-free countries were nearly all stopped.

During that same time span, however, polio outbreaks in China and West Africa due to importation from Pakistan and Nigeria, respectively, have highlighted the continued threat of resurgence. Failure to eradicate the disease could lead within a decade to paralysis of as many as 200,000 children per year worldwide.

Polio has declined rapidly since 1985, but the fight isn't over. While polio is a crippling and potentially fatal infectious disease, for as little as US$0.60, a child can be vaccinated for life. If we don't finish the fight right now, more than 10 million children under the age of five could be paralyzed in the next 40 years. Rotary raises funds to make sure every child receives access to the polio vaccine. See the impact your contribution can make.