Rushen and Western Mann Rotary gives £1,800 to polio eradication fund

The Rotary Club of Rushen & Western Mann is giving £1,800 to Rotary International’s PolioPlus Fund to mark World Polio Day this week, Energy FM has reported.

Because Rotary International has a partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the foundation will add £2 for every £1 the club gives. That brings the total value of the gift to three times the original sum.

The donation is being made through Rotary’s End Polio Now campaign. The money will help pay for immunisation, monitoring for the disease and work to contain outbreaks.

According to figures reported by the station, polio cases worldwide have fallen by 99.9% in the last 40 years through the work of Rotary and its partners. Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only countries where the wild form of the virus is still endemic.

Simon Jennings, a club member who survived polio himself, welcomed the gift. He said immunisation had shielded countless children and had moved the world nearer to getting rid of the disease for good.

The club’s president, Cecilia Ngotho, said Rotary was proud to support the campaign. She said much had been achieved but the effort had to go on until polio was fully eradicated.