Rotary Hears About Polio Eradication Efforts

Polio Plus was the topic of a program presented at the Nov. 5 meeting of the Trenton Rotary Club. Martha Goedert gave a presentation on Rotary International’s efforts to eradicate polio around the world through the PolioPlus program. The PolioPlus program was started by Rotary International in 1985 with the goal of eradicating polio in the Americas. With a matching donation from the Bill Gates Foundation, Rotary expanded its efforts to all countries throughout the world. As of late 2026, PolioPlus has recorded zero new confirmed wild polio cases in 2026, but the disease remains an endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and circulating vaccine-derived polio virus outbreaks continue in parts of Africa and the Middle East. Statistics show a 99.9% reduction in polio cases since 1988. More than $2.6 billion has been contributed by Rotary to the polio eradication effort, with 3 billion children vaccinated through the program. In 2020, Nigeria was certified as wild polio-free.

This excerpt comes from the named source. Read the original for the full reporting.