Committed to the eradication of polio for the world’s children

I REFER to the article “Has the world given up on eradicating polio?” which appeared in The Star on Aug 10 (online at bit.ly/star_polio).

Rotary has been working to eradicate polio for more than 35 years. As a founding partner of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), we have reduced polio cases by 99.9% since our first project to vaccinate children in the Philippines in 1979. Rotary members have contributed more than US$2.1bil (RM8.89bil) and countless volunteer hours to protect nearly three billion children in 122 countries from this paralysing disease. Rotary’s advocacy efforts have played a role in decisions by governments to contribute more than US$10bil (RM42.3bil) to this effort.