End Polio Now
Together, we end polio. Rotary has been working to rid the world of this disease for more than forty years — and we are closer than ever.
Visit endpolio.orgWhy polio, and why Rotary
Polio is a paralysing and sometimes fatal disease that mainly affects children under five. There is no cure, but it can be prevented with a vaccine that costs very little and has been available for decades.
Rotary has worked on this for more than 45 years. It vaccinated its first children against polio in the Philippines in 1979, and in 1988 became a founding partner of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative alongside the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and later the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Gavi.
Since then, Rotary and its partners have immunised more than 3 billion children in 122 countries, and Rotary has contributed more than US$2.9 billion in PolioPlus grants. Cases have fallen by 99.9% since 1988.
Rotary also campaigns for government funding, and that advocacy has helped secure US$11 billion from national governments towards eradication.
In 2024 alone
At fifteen US cents a dose, protecting a child costs less than almost anything else in public health.
Where things stand
Only Afghanistan and Pakistan have never stopped transmission of the wild poliovirus. In 2025 Afghanistan reported 21 cases and Pakistan 31 cases.
The last stretch is the hardest. Reaching every child means working through conflict, difficult terrain and, in places, mistrust of vaccination. Until polio is eradicated everywhere, it can return anywhere — which is why the work continues in countries that have been polio-free for years, India included.
Why we cannot stop now
If eradication efforts ceased, polio could paralyse as many as 200,000 children every year within a decade. Ending it is the only outcome that lasts.
India and polio
India recorded its last case of wild poliovirus in January 2011 and was certified polio-free, with the rest of the WHO South-East Asia Region, in March 2014. That result depended on years of National Immunization Days in which Rotary members across Kerala and the country took part. Maintaining it depends on continued vaccination and surveillance.
Figures from endpolio.org and rotary.org/en/our-work/ending-polio, checked 22 July 2026. Case counts and annual totals change during the year — check the sources above before reusing them.