Middleton Rotary Club helping to eradicate polio

Middleton Rotary Club and family members in Jubilee Park, Middleton planting crocus bulbs

The Middleton Rotary Club joined a nationwide initiative to raise the awareness of Rotary Internationals pledge in 1985 to eradicate polio.

A small team of Rotarians and family members assembled at Jubilee Park in Middleton on a perfect autumnal Saturday morning and planted approximately 2,000 purple croci bulbs in two hours.

The first flowers should appear in spring.

Club President Ged Heatherington said: “This will remind park users that the purple crocus is the symbol of Rotary’s worldwide campaign to eradicate polio and is the focus of this project, which was specially developed by the Rotary Crocus Campaign and the Youth Service Committee of Rotary International in Great Britain & Ireland (RIBI).

So far, over a hundred Rotary Clubs have signed up to sponsor the project and already several schools and groups in Rochdale have assisted in planting bulbs across the Borough.”

Since Rotary made polio eradication its top priority in 1985 and joined forces with the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988:

Polio cases have decreased by over 99% since 1988, from an estimated 350 000 cases then, to 74 reported cases in 2015. The reduction is the result of the global effort to eradicate the disease.

125 endemic countries have been reduced to just four; Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan and

Rotary International is the largest private sector contributor to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative

Rotary members have raised £376 million ($700 million) to fund polio immunization activities

Rotary clubs in Great Britain and Ireland have donated £10.5 million (US$20 million) to polio immunization initiatives

Two billion children have so far been protected from the disease

Five million have been spared from disability

250,000 deaths have been averted