Newtownabby Rotary Club shows support for polio eradication effort

Rotary members throughout Great Britain and Ireland lit up all sorts of iconic buildings, areas and structures in purple, bringing people together to raise awareness and donations for the Rotary End Polio Now campaign.

Purple has become a symbolic colour in the fight against polio, inspired by the colour of the dye painted on the little finger of a child to signify they have received a potentially life-saving polio vaccine.

Since Rotary and its partners launched the Global Polio Eradication Initiative over 35 years ago, the incidence of polio has plummeted by more than 99.99 per cent.

In order to sustain this progress, around 2 billion doses of the vaccine still have to be given to more than 400 million children in up to 60 countries every single year.

This is in addition to the routine immunisations that happen elsewhere around the world, including in the UK and Ireland.

Rotary has contributed more than US$2.1 billion to ending polio since 1985, and the Rotary Club of Newtownabbey have supported this campaign since it began.

Meanwhile, the club also planted crocus corns to mark Wold Polio Day. The club’s Foundation Committee chairperson, Leonard Sproule, asked Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council to join in their plan to plant 4,000 Crocus corms for a commemorative bed in Threemilewater Park.

For more information, contact Newtownabbey Rotary on Facebook and via www.rotarygbi.org to find out more about Newtownabbey Rotary and the world’s largest voluntary organisation.