During the 2016 Rotary International Convention held in Seoul, South Korea, earlier this week, Ban Ki-moon, secretary general of the country, praised the “invaluable partnership” between Rotary International and the United Nations. During his speech, he noted that not only has Rotary International been a key player in the fight against polio since it launched […]

Sophi Lin Hsiu Hsia, a Taiwanese polio patient and wheelchair dancing champion, is just one of the performer’s during the month-long Blossom Arts Festival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. As a national coach and judge of wheelchair dancing under the Chinese Taipei Sports Federation for the Disabled, Lin, 49, has won numerous dancing competitions across the […]

During the first half of the 20th century, families across the United States collectively feared a newly discovered illness: polio. But one city in particular, Houston, was one of the hardest hit in the nation, according to the book “The Polio Years in Texas: Battling a Terrifying Unknown.” Luckily, the city had a number of […]

Healthcare workers have been experiencing resistance from some locals when trying to administer the polio vaccine in Ludhiana, a district in India, and officials claim that affluent people have proven to be the biggest culprits. Over the past few weeks, there’s been a large push to immunize children with the polio vaccine, however some workers […]

Every day around the world scientists collect and save specimens for the future study of various illnesses, but some members of the polio eradication community are concerned that these stashes of samples could contain strains of the poliovirus and eventually lead to a future polio outbreak. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative mandates that all research […]

For the first time in history, environmental samples for polio in Pakistan came back negative, officials said, which shows a sign of progress in the country’s ongoing fight against the debilitating disease. In April, the World Health Organization supervised the collection of 40 samples, which were then sent to the National Health Institute to be […]

After two new cases of polio were reported in Pakistan, the World Health Organization (WHO) has mandated travel restrictions to the Middle Eastern country for the next three months. Pakistan, along with its neighbor Afghanistan, are the only two countries in the world where polio is still evident, and international travelers from Pakistan will be […]

Dr. Victoria Gammino, an epidemiologist within the Global Immunization Division of the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, thanked members of the Rotary Club of Bristol VA-TN for their continued effort to help eradicate polio. Since 1988, the club, which is based in Bristol, Virginia, has been a involved with spreading awareness about the […]

Risking lives to help others is nothing new for Saira Nizamuddin. The 19-year-old healthcare worker travels around Karachi, Pakistan, the largest city in the world where polio is still evident, to administer the polio vaccine. She, along with a team of 10 other vaccinators—all local women—were once escorted by police when they traveled from door […]

According to a recent study, a single injectable dose of inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) along with the bivalent polio vaccine could protect up to 90 percent of children from polio while also protecting communities from the debilitating disease. The study, which was conducted by the Center for Global Health at the Colorado School of Public […]