“I’m going to take you on a journey – where polio has been, where it has brought us and how you can help finish the job.”
That’s what Johrita Solari told members of the Rotary Club of Lake Arrowhead at their April 28 meeting.
Solari – a past district governor, Rotary International director and Rotary International vice president – is currently chair of the Polio Eradication Advocacy Task Force for the United States and vice chair of the End Polio Now Count Down to History.
“Polio eradication is more than a project,” Solari said. “It’s our promise. It’s faith in action.
“When Rotary acts, children walk – that’s the heart of it.”
A century ago, Solari said, polio meant fear. Then came vaccines. It was appropriate she brought this message during Immunization Awareness week.
The Salk vaccine arrived in 1955, followed by the Sabin vaccine in 1961. It was in 1988 that a global push to eradicate polio was launched by Rotary. Since then, billions of doses and countless volunteers and partnerships across every border have pushed polio back to the smallest footprint in human history.
“The last mile is always the hardest and most important,” Solari said.
She reported that as of April 2026, there were just three wild polio cases in Afghanistan and just one in Pakistan. The numbers in 2025 for those two countries were 21 and 31.
There have, however, been multiple polio positive environmental samples reported since the beginning of the year. Such samples were found in London and Hamburg. They were traced back to areas in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Fortunately, no paralysis resulted from these samples.
The case in New York two years ago was in a community where the people do not believe in immunization. “The more people get immunized,” Solari said, “the safer you are.”
Rotary has contributed more than $2.9 billion to its efforts to eradicate polio and has immunized three billion children.
The annual fundraising goal is $50 million, which will be matched 2:1 by the Gates Foundation until 2029.
Solari was pleased to report that there has been a bipartisan focus on eliminating polio. Congress has funded more than $5 billion since 1985. And They approved $265 million for FY 2026 with another $265 million included in the FY 2027 budget.
Solari and her husband, Bruce, went to Pakistan to witness first-hand the efforts being made to eliminate the disease. “Everyone love vaccinating children,” she said. “When you give those two drops, they will never contract this terrible disease.
“When we got there, we found a dedicated army of vaccinators. They are proud of what they are doing.”
Those volunteers even vaccinated children as they got off a city bus and went door to door with the drops.
She and her husband also saw first-hand the devastation from historic flooding in Pakistan. One-third of the country was under water. That impacted the polio eradication efforts as the virus is water-borne and can live in the environment four to six weeks.
“The fear was the virus would contaminate the water supply and create new pathways to infect children,” Solari said.
How could Rotary help? The answer was to fund water purification stations – a call Rotarians around the world responded to.
“Service is not always easy,” Solari said, “but it’s always worth it.”
She stressed that Rotary’s strength lies in partnerships between clubs, countries and organizations like WHO, UNICEF and the Gates Foundation.
“The last mile is hard but we know how to keep showing up, to listen, learn and adapt – and we know how to do it together.
“We are changing lives. We will see the end of polio. The family of Rotary always steps up when others step back.”
0 Comments