On the birthday of inventor of polio vaccine Dr. Jonak Salk we too have assembled to remember our pledge to make the world polio free on World Polio Day and today as a Rotarian I can proudly say that in January 2014 India will be declared as a polio-free country,” said president of Hazaribagh Rotary Valley Rotarian Anil Kumar in a specially organised program on Thursday late evening.
After the invention of polio vaccine in 1979 it was first used in Philippines but war against polio actually started in 1985 when Rotary International pioneered the polio free world movement with a budget of about 120 million dollars. Initially Rotarians faced many hurdles but they kept moving towards their goal and in 1988 Unicef, WHO and several other organisations joined hands with us.
In India we started our journey in 1994 from New Delhi. In the year 2000, Government and NGOs came with us and movement of giving polio drops to every children started in our country. Since then Rotary International has spent about Rs. 1400 crores for making India a polio free country, he added.