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Did you know that . . .
* Polio is a highly infectious disease that primarily affects children under the age of five and can cause total paralysis within a matter of hours.
* Rotary International is the spearheading member of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, founded in 1988, and is the largest private sector donor. Rotary membership will contribute more than US$750 million to the polio eradication effort by 2010. In addition, over a million volunteer Rotarians will have partnered with their national ministries of health, UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and with health providers at the grassroots level in thousands of communities around the globe.
* Vaccinations are the only way to prevent polio, there is no cure. A child can be protected against polio for as little as 60 cents (US) worth of vaccine.
* Before eradication efforts began in 1988, polio infected more than 1,000 children a day, or 350,000 children annually. Today, the incidence of polio has declined by more than 99 percent, and in 2007 less than 1,500 children contracted polio.
* To date, two billion children have been immunized, five million have been spared disability, and over 250,000 deaths from polio have been prevented.
* Only four countries remain polio-endemic: Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan.
* Rotary's US$100 Million Challenge, a three-year fundraising commitment, is the Rotary Foundation's response to the $100 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help eradicate polio. Every dollar given to PolioPlus from 2007 - 2010 will be counted toward the $100 million match."
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 "Allan Fish and DG Marcy")
