The Africa Regional Office of the World Health Organisation (WHO) will declare Africa polio-free today Tuesday 25th August 2020. Polio, a vaccine-preventable disease, paralyses hundreds of thousands of children each year around the world, especially in Africa. In its more than 30-year effort to eradicate the disease, Rotary has partnered with numerous organisations to vaccinate more than 2.5 billion children. As such, the Rotary Club of Freetown joins Rotary Clubs around the world to wholeheartedly celebrate today’s declaration of victory.
The long, difficult journey began in the Philippines in 1979, when Rotary started a series of polio immunisation campaigns throughout Southeast Asia and Latin America, Cambodia, Haiti, Morocco, Paraguay, and Sierra Leone. In 1985, Rotary introduced PolioPlus, the first effort to immunise every child in the world with the polio vaccine. To achieve this goal, it was estimated that $120 million should be raised.
Three years later, at its yearly convention in Philadelphia, Rotary announced that it had raised $247 million, more than double the target amount it had set for itself. In the first 10 years of the campaign, Rotary raised 75% of all funds geared towards polio eradication in various national programmes. Many in those days doubted the possibility of launching a global effort to eradicate the childhood disease.
Rotary, however, pushed forward a global resolution to eradicate polio at the 1988 World Health Assembly in Geneva. It went on to spearhead the establishment of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative with the WHO, U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and UNICEF.
In Sierra Leone, many community-based, private and public institutions have joined this global partnership with Rotary, WHO, UNICEF and the US CDC to ensure that all children under the age of 5 are vaccinated against polio. The yearly “Maklate” programmes have become a household event supported by all governments. A significant percentage of the financial support received each year from WHO and UNICEF for the Polio Programme in various countries actually comes from Rotary Global Fundraising.
Sierra Leone became polio free in 2007 and has remained so due to the scheduling of local and national immunisation days, routine surveillance and engagement at all community and institutional levels. The Rotary Club of Freetown has participated in yearly immunisation campaigns, advocacy and awareness-building activities, including public seminars, marches and sponsored walks. These activities are all aimed at creating greater awareness among local households, thereby ensuring positive health behaviour at the family level.
From 2002 to 2003, a new collaboration with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation resulted in the foundation contributing $1 million to Rotary and the Gates Award for Global Health. Since then, Rotary has regularly raised its own funding goals. In 2013, the Bill and Gates Foundation agreed to match 2-to-1 every dollar committed by Rotary, up to $35 million per year, through 2018.
As a result, Rotary and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have announced an increased combined pledge of up to $450 million. Rotary’s new goal is to contribute $50 million per year over three years. With a 2-to-1 match, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s contribution will increase to $300 million if Rotary reaches its fundraising target.
This year, in support of the global effort to end polio once and for all, the Rotary Club of Freetown and 35,000 other Rotary Clubs around the world, will each raise $1,500 towards the overall goal of a $100 million.
By Ophaniel Gooding