PolioPlus is the most dramatic and audacious program ever attempted by a non-profit organization. Through fundraising and individual donations, Rotary International will facilitate the extinction of a major disease. Only one other disease in the history of mankind has been deliberately eliminated – that disease is smallpox. Rotary is the largest nongovernmental financial contributor to the global polio eradication effort. By the time the world is certified polio-free, Rotary's contributions to the global polio eradication effort will exceed US $600 million. Individual Rotarians are going from one country to another around the world administering the polio vaccine to children in danger of contracting this devastating disease. From Senegal to Sri Lanka, Mexico to Madagascar, every outpost of exposure is being inoculated. At present the disease is still endemic in less than six areas of the world, most in central and west Africa and The Indian sub-continent.

While the Western hemisphere, the Western Pacific, and the European region have been declared Polio free, it is possible to have an outbreak anywhere in the world through cross cultural infection. Even those areas previously declared free of this disease are susceptible because of poor sanitation, lack of proper healthcare, and lack of proper vaccination standards. The goal of PolioPlus is to eliminate the return of the mass quarantines, public health scares, and pictures of children in iron lungs that haunted so many of our childhoods.

For more information on PolioPlus see Rotary International PolioPlus.