World Polio Day...Rotary's End Polio Now Campaign

The Rotary International established World Polio Day more than ten years ago. This was to commemorate the birth of Jonas Salk, who was responsible in leading the first team to develop a vaccine against poliomyelitis. 

The use of this vaccine developed by Salk paved the way for the development and subsequent widespread use of the oral poliovirus, developed by Albert Sabin. These breakthroughs led to the establishment of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) in 1988 which has been  responsible for the reduction of polio worldwide by 99%.

The Philippines was one of the first beneficiaries of this campaign when  Sergio Mulitsch di Palmenberg (1923–1987), Governor of RI District 204 (1984–1985), founder of the RC of Treviglio and Pianura Bergamasca (Italy), inspired and promoted the RI PolioPlus vaccination campaign and made it possible to ship the first 500,000 doses of antipolio vaccine to the Philippines at the beginning of 1980.

Find out how you can help in this Global Initiative: http://www.endpolio.org/