In 1988 the global community adopted the goal of ending polio altogether. At that time more than 350,000 children a year worldwide were killed or paralyzed by the disease. Since then, vaccination coverage has increased significantly and the number of cases has gone down by 99 percent, to fewer than 1,500 last year. There are now just four countries where polio transmission has never been stopped: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

Rotary and its partners are on the brink of eradicating polio, but a strong push is needed now to end this tenacious disease once and for all. Your contributions support immunization campaigns in developing countries where polio continues to infect and paralyze children, robbing them of their futures and compounding the hardships faced by their families. As long as polio threatens even one child anywhere in the world, children everywhere remain at risk. By donating now, you can help Rotary achieve a polio-free world.

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative is a public-private partnership led by national governments and spearheaded by the World Health Organization (WHO), Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Its goal is to eradicate polio worldwide.

The global effort to eradicate polio is the largest public health initiative in history. The initiative was established in 1988 by the World Health Assembly with the goal of eradicating polio by the year 2000 while strengthening capacity to control other major childhood diseases. At the 126th Session of the Executive Board (EB) of the World Health Assembly (WHA) in January 2010, delegates expressed strong support for finishing the job of polio eradication and for the finalization of a new three-year Program of Work. To obtain more information and to get updates about the progress of the initiative worldwide, please visit the Global Polio Eradication Initiative pages on the World Health Organization's web site.

To meet the target date of polio eradication, the global partners are looking for ways to supplement human resources at the field level. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is therefore seeking short-term, highly qualified, health professionals to join our Stop Transmission of Polio (STOP) Teams for three-month non-salaried field assignments (travel and per diem for food and lodging provided.)