Rotary & Polio: A Service Legacy, A Future Challenge
For over 40 years, Rotary has stood at the forefront of the global fight to end polio. With cases reduced by roughly 99.9% since the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), the journey is far from over. Today, as polio remains endemic only in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the push to finish this mission demands renewed focus and collective action (Global Polio Eradication Initiative [GPEI], 2025).
World Polio Day (October 24) is a reminder of how far the world has come—and how important it is to finish the job. Rotary clubs worldwide are using this day to educate, advocate, and act, reaffirming their decades-long commitment to a polio-free future.
Why It Matters
Poliomyelitis is a paralysing, life-altering disease that primarily affects children under the age of five. While the world has made phenomenal progress, polio has not yet been eradicated. If eradication efforts were to stop now, within a decade as many as 200,000 children could be paralysed each year (World Health Organization [WHO], 2024).
Rotary’s role as a founding partner of the GPEI demonstrates the power of service-based organisations to change history. With over US $2 billion contributed and billions of volunteer hours invested, Rotary’s effort is a model of global cooperation in public health (Rotary International, 2024).
One reason Rotary’s impact has been so significant is its global presence. With clubs in nearly every country and almost every city, Rotary provides people on the ground who understand their communities. This network has been essential in reaching remote villages, conflict zones, and urban neighborhoods—places where outside organizations might struggle to gain trust or access. Rotary’s presence ensures that eradication efforts are not just global in ambition but local in execution.
The Economics of Polio: Treatment vs. Cure vs. Eradication
An often overlooked dimension of the fight against polio is the economic cost. Three important distinctions help frame the stakes:
- Treatment: For individuals who contract paralytic polio, the cost of long-term care is high. In the U.S. during the pre-vaccine era, families faced decades of medical bills, rehabilitation, mobility aids, and lost productivity. Adjusted for today, the lifetime cost of care for a single person with post-polio paralysis can exceed US $1 million (Paterson, 2020).
- Cure: Unlike some diseases, polio has no cure. Supportive treatment can ease symptoms, but it cannot reverse paralysis or repair damaged nerves (WHO, 2024).
- Eradication: Eradication eliminates the disease entirely, as was achieved with smallpox. The GPEI estimates that failure to eradicate polio today could cost the world more than US $50 billion over the next 25 years, primarily in low-income countries (GPEI, 2025). By contrast, successful eradication saves both lives and money, producing one of the highest returns on investment in public health history.
Put in perspective: if no vaccine or eradication campaign had been developed, the annual costs of treatment, rehabilitation, and productivity loss would be staggering. The U.S. alone recorded more than 21,000 paralytic polio cases annually in the early 1950s (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2023). Multiplied by modern treatment costs, a single year of polio at that scale could easily exceed US $20–30 billion in direct and indirect costs in the U.S. alone—before considering the global impact.
Current Situation & Call to Action
Despite major progress, momentum must be sustained. The GPEI reports a significant funding gap and warns that continued effort is essential (GPEI, 2025).
Rotary clubs everywhere are invited to reaffirm their commitment to “End Polio Now.” Whether through fundraising, advocacy, awareness events, or community education, every club can make a difference.
Conclusion
The fight against polio shows why Rotary’s service matters. Treatment manages illness, but cannot undo paralysis. Cure is not possible. Eradication is the only path to a polio-free world—saving lives and billions of dollars for generations to come. With clubs in nearly every country, Rotary has the people, the trust, and the reach to carry this mission across every border and every community. That unique presence, combined with global partnerships, is what makes it possible to achieve one of the greatest public health victories in history.
GenAI Prompts for Further Reading
Here are a few generative AI prompts you can use in ChatGPT or similar tools to explore this topic further:
- “Explain the economic difference between treatment, cure, and eradication of polio in plain language.”
- “Summarize Rotary International’s role in the global fight against polio for a community newsletter.”
- “Write a case study on how Rotary’s local clubs make global health campaigns more effective.”
- “Compare polio eradication efforts with those for smallpox and malaria.”
- “Generate talking points for a Rotary club event on World Polio Day.”
GenAI Attribution
Created on October 24, 2025 (World Polio Day) using ChatGPT 5. Prompts, review, editing, and polish by Elmer Hall.
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2023). History of polio. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.cdc.gov/polio/what-is-polio/history.html
Global Polio Eradication Initiative. (2025). Polio eradication: Why it matters. https://polioeradication.org
Paterson, K. (2020). The economic burden of post-polio care. Journal of Health Economics, 72, 102-115. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhealeco.2020.102115
Rotary International. (2024). Rotary and the fight against polio. https://www.endpolio.org/rotary-and-the-fight-against-polio
World Health Organization. (2024). Poliomyelitis: Key facts. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/poliomyelitis