EVANSTON, Ill. (August 15, 2018) — Rotary International announced nearly $100 million in grants to support the global effort to end polio, a vaccine-preventable disease that once paralyzed hundreds of thousands of children each year.
The announcement comes as Nigeria marks two years without any reported cases of wild poliovirus, following four reported cases in 2016.
“The fact that no new cases of wild poliovirus have been detected in Nigeria points to the improved surveillance and rapid response protocols Rotary and its Global Polio Eradication Initiativepartners have established, particularly in insecure and inaccessible areas,” said Michael K. McGovern, chair of Rotary’s International PolioPlus Committee. “While this progress is promising, it’s time to redouble our efforts so we can continue to maintain the political and financial support necessary to end polio for good.”
Rotary has committed to raising $50 million a year to be matched 2-to-1 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, yielding $450 for polio eradication activities over a three-year period. To date, Rotary has contributed more than $1.8 billion to fight the disease, including matching funds from the Gates Foundation, and countless volunteer hours since launching its polio immunization program, PolioPlus, in 1985. In 1988, Rotary became a core partner in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative with the WHO, UNICEF, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Gates Foundation later joined. Since the initiative launched, the incidence of polio has plummeted by more than 99.9 percent, from about 350,000 cases in 1988 to 22 confirmed in 2017.
Please continue supporting this excellent program that provides coats to children in the Waterloo Community School District. Last year we were able to provide 1,200 coats and this year our goal is 1,500 coats. To help in this goal and if you are a Cyclone fan, contact Steve about purchasing his 2 lower deck, 30 yard line tickets for the Akron game on Sept. 22nd , the Baylor game November 10th, or the Kansas State game on Nov. 24th. These tickets are great seats and the proceeds will go straight to Operation Warm. Each pair is offered for $200, but any additional donation would help us beat our goal of providing 1,500 coats this year!
You can help by sharing the post on our Facebook page with your friends who are Cyclone Football fans.
Let us know if you are attending Volunteer Day at the warehouse on 11th Street to pack boxes on September 10th from 11:30 to 1:30. A sign-up sheet will be at the check-in desk to enable us to order you a lunch from Jimmy Johns. Also, please help out packing boxes from 3:30 to 5:30 in the afternoons of September 4th – 6th and 11th – 13th. Email Steve Thorpe for details.
Directions to the 11th St. warehouse for the September 10th meeting:
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