Polio: A Plane Ride Away (Aired on April 10, 2009)

We are nearly there, very close. The success of Rotary International’s polio eradication campaign, called PolioPlus, is described by Rotary District 7210’s PolioPlus Chair Bunnee Webb who clarifies why polio continues to be an issue in the world today. Since there are still a few people not yet vaccinated here and abroad, this leaves non-vaccinated people, especially children, open to this infectious, crippling disease. Ms. Webb briefly describes polio’s horrifying history, when many polio victims were either left crippled forever or forced to live out their lives in an iron lung. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given Rotary International a grant to facilitate the final eradication of polio, which, when successful, will be the second disease to be eradicated from the earth, the first being smallpox.