Rotary International is teaming up with violin virtuoso and polio survivor Itzhak Perlman and the world-renowned New York Philharmonic to present the Concert to End Polio, a benefit performance supporting the global effort to eradicate this disabling and sometimes fatal childhood disease.

Polio eradication resonates strongly with Mr. Perlman, who contracted the disease at age four and overcame serious physical challenges to become one of the world’s most celebrated musicians. Mr. Perlman is a winner of 15 Grammy Awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008. In this historic, one-night-only performance Perlman will help Rotary in its effort to raise $200 million to match a $355 million challenge grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. All of the money raised will fund critical eradication activities in countries where polio still threatens children.

Rotary International, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched an initiative to make polio only the second disease to be eradicated. At the time (1988), there were 350,000 polio cases a year. Last year, there were less than 2,000. Worldwide, the number of polio cases has been slashed by 99 percent, preventing five million cases of childhood paralysis and 250,000 deaths. However, the final one percent of cases is the most difficult and expensive to prevent.

The one-night-only performance will be held on 2 December at 7:30 p.m. in New York City.
Learn how you can help at rotary.org/endpolio or purchase tickets for this historic event at nyphil.org/perlman.

-Petina Dixon, Rotary International

As you know, the Living Proof Project has sought to emphasize the many ways in which US investments in global health are working. Along with a wealth of information detailing a number of global health success stories, the Living Proof Project has also created a few very cool interactive graphics.

I really like this one. It’s an interactive map detailing the vast progress made toward global eradication of polio. Over just the last 20 years, polio has been wiped off large portions of the globe. Click the map below and see for yourself:

The effort to eradicate polio received an influx of $635 million today to intensify vaccination campaigns in India and Nigeria over the next five years. Rotary International, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the governments of Germany and Britain provided this new money for the two countries that account for more than 80 percent of the remaining 1,633 polio cases. This is good news for the polio eradication effort, which has suffered setbacks, but could help polio to join smallpox on the list of eradicated diseases.

Polio has proved to be a challenging disease to eradicate. Polio often lies ‘silent’ in the body, which means that people may not show signs of illness and thus may not know they are infected. The virus can spread widely through a community during this time. Since polio causes paralysis in only 1 of 200 people, public health authorities may not be aware of the infection until it has spread extensively. Also, to successfully eradicate polio, all three strains of the virus must be eliminated. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) uses a vaccine that contains weakened forms of all three strains. This vaccine can successfully immunize people against future exposure to the polio virus and eventually lead to eradication.

Recognizing this potential, in 2005 the G8 committed to contribute $829 million between 2006 and 2008 to the polio eradication effort. Since then, donors have begun to close the financing gap. ONE’s 2008 Data Report describes this progress, and notes that the United States, followed by the UK and Japan have been the largest G8 donors to the GPEI. Hopefully, with this new $635 million donation to the fight against polio, eradication can become a reality.

-Lisa Fleisher

With no cases of polio in Somalia in the last year, the WHO has declared the country’s massive vaccination campaign a success.

“Some 10,000 volunteers and health workers delivered multiple doses of oral vaccine to children in Somalia’s hard-to-reach villages, nomadic communities and makeshift camps that have grown as a result of clashes between Islamic insurgents, warlords and Ethiopian-backed Somali government forces.

Bruce Aylward, director of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, said the campaign showed that the virus could be stopped in highly insecure pockets of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and densely populated corners of India where sanitation facilities are lacking.”

Read more in the Reuter’s article.