Rotarians, Hy-Vee helping snuff out polio this weekend

Posted

FORT MADISON - Members of the Fort Madison Rotary club were at Hy-Vee Friday selling lunches and root beer floats to help raise funds for polio vaccines. Rotarian Tim Gobble said funds raised through the effort will go to the local Rotary club and then forwarded along to help snuff out the disease. Hy-Vee will be asking all customers to round up their purchases over this coming weekend and will donate those funds to the campaign as well.

In 1985 Rotary launched its PolioPlus program, the first initiative to tackle global polio eradication through a massive campaign to vaccinate children. Since that time Rotary has contributed more than $1.7 billion and countless volunteer hours to immunize more than 2.5 billion children in 122 countries.

In addition Rotary's efforts have played a role in decisions by donor governments to contribute more than $7.2 billion to the effort. Today there are only three countries that have never stopped transmission of the polio virus: Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan. Just 37 cases of polio were reported in 2016, which is a 99.9% reduction since the early 80s when the world saw close to 1,000 cases per day.

Save

community, fort madison, Pen City Current, Polio, Rotarians, Rotary, volunteer

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here