Rotary Club of Blacktown City

World Immunization Week: Vaccines Save Lives

During World Immunization Week, 24-30 April, join us in advocating for polio eradication and the importance of vaccines.

As one of the greatest advances of modern medicine, vaccines are safe, effective, and save millions of lives each year. Our progress in the fight to end polio is proof that vaccines work.

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative estimates that the polio vaccine has saved more than 20 million children around the world from paralysis. However, approximately 12.5 million children are totally unvaccinated. They are known as zero-dose children, and vaccinating them is critical to stopping polio for good.

Volunteers wait to collect a vaccine supply before immunization activities in Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria. 26 February 2017. In August 2016, new cases of the polio virus were discovered at a camp for internally displaced persons (IDP) in Nigeria, which had been removed from the list of polio-endemic countries. In response, Rotary and its partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative have strengthened surveillance methods to better detect the virus in areas of conflict.

We need to continue vaccinating the world’s children against polio, because polio anywhere is a threat everywhere.

Here’s how you can support Rotary’s efforts during World Immunization Week:

  • Use the World Immunization Week Toolkit for graphics and sample posts to share on social media with the hashtags #EndPolio and #VaccinesWork.
  • Download and share our video, “Zero-Dose Children.”
  • Donate to PolioPlus to help Rotary and our partners deliver polio vaccines to vulnerable children. Or start an online fundraiser to help us end polio using Raise for Rotary and share it with your network. Contributions will be matched 2-to-1 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.


Rotary districts can give District Designated Funds (DDF) to PolioPlus to help meet our goal of raising US$50 million each year to eradicate polio.


Join us during World Immunization Week and remind the world that together, we end polio.

A healthcare worker administers polio vaccine to a child during a National Immunization Day in the village of Azuretti, Cote d’Ivoire, 27 April 2013. Find the story in “The Rotarian,” October 2013, pages 45-51.

Rotary Club of Blacktown City Inc

Address: PO Box 12, Blacktown, NSW 2148

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