World Polio Day

Around the world, each year, a variety of tactics have been developed to urge people to join the effort to end this disease. For example, on the 2012 World Polio Day, in Germany, Rotarians partnered with the Deutsche Bahn railway to emblazon a locomotive with the Rotary International gearwheel, the End Polio Now logo, and the slogan, "We have almost made it. Get on board for a world without polio." The locomotive moved trains through Germany's major cities for the subsequent 12 months. During that time, Rotary clubs organised their own events. In Mauritius, Rotarians raised funds for PolioPlus, organized an End Polio Now regatta, arranged screenings of the documentary "The Final Inch", and sponsored a local version of the International Great Waiters Race, with participants sporting End Polio Now T-shirts. The Rotaract Club of Diamond Valley, Victoria, Australia, organised a gathering at the Parliament House in Canberra. Members of the Rotary Club of Three Rivers (Vereeniging), South Africa, made presentations at schools and to local government leaders about the need to eradicate polio. In the United States (US), the (Connecticut) Westport and Sunrise Rotary Clubs hosted an event at a public library involving people from the community that either had polio or have been personally impacted by the disease with a loved one; they came and shared their stories at this community gathering. There was also a music CD for sale featuring songs performed by Rotary polio ambassadors.

Participatory internet communication and social media have also been part of World Polio Day commemorations. In 2012, more than 1,500 people took part in the launch of the World's Biggest Commercial, an online initiative promoting the global effort to eradicate polio. Nearly a half-million people also took part in a social media campaign to raise Rotary's voice on World Polio Day by signing on to send a mass message through Twitter and Facebook. In 2013, World Polio Day: Making History was a livestream event presented by Rotary and Northwestern University's Center for Global Health (Illinois, US), beginning at 6:30 p.m. EDT on October 24. This 90-minute programme before a live audience brought together a panel of experts to discuss the progress of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) and the ways that members of the general public can support the final push needed to end polio forever. Amongst the speakers: polio survivor and Paralympian Dennis Ogbe, an ambassador for the United Nations Foundation's Shot@Life campaign to promote childhood immunisations. A toolkit offered social media strategies to promote World Polio Day, such as by hosting a viewing party of the 90-minute programme at a Rotary club meeting, sharing sample tweets and Facebook posts, embedding the livestream video player, and so on.

In subsequent years, the livestream event began being hosted on the GPEI website. The 2016 event, for instance, is streaming live from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, US, to bring together more than 50,000 viewers around the world. Joining in are celebrities and experts to share progress on the road to polio eradication. As in years past, members of the public were asked to share the sample Facebook posts, Instagram images, and tweets on the GPEI website and to use the #endpolio hashtag to follow and join the global conversation on social media.

Immunisation and Vaccines

The date of World Polio Day is designed to mark the month in which Jonas Salk was born (October 28); he was the leader of the team that invented the first polio vaccine in 1955. In 1988, Albert Sabin developed an oral polio vaccine, which is what is being used today. It has reduced polio worldwide by 99%.