Rotary and Health

Improving the world's health

With its vast international grassroots network, Rotary initiates global and community-based projects to address a wide range of health risks that threaten the well-being of those without access to adequate health care.

Polio Eradication

• In 1985, Rotary created its flagship program, PolioPlus – an effort which aims to eradicate polio worldwide.
• In 1988, Rotary partnered with the World Health Organization, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and UNICEF to spearhead the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, an unprecedented public/private partnership which has reduced the incidence of polio by more than 99 percent.
• In 2009, Rotary was awarded US$355 million for polio eradication by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Rotary will match it with an additional US$200 million over three years. This challenge grant is one of the largest given by the Gates Foundation and it represents a tremendous validation of Rotary's goal-oriented, business model approach to polio eradication.
• Rotary has contributed nearly US$800 million and countless hours of volunteer work to help immunize an estimated two billion children throughout the world. This commitment to end polio represents the largest private-sector support of a global health initiative to date.

In addition to polio eradication efforts, Rotary clubs address a wide-range of health concerns including projects providing health care and medical supplies, preventing and treating HIV/AIDS, and combating malaria in endemic parts of the world.

Other Health Project Examples

• Recognizing the need for a comprehensive approach in the fight against maternal mortality, Rotary clubs from Germany, Austria and Nigeria initiated a $1.2 million pilot project in the states of Kanu and Kaduna, Nigeria. The project aims to improve the maternal health of five million women and to prevent and treat obstetric fistula, a painful birth injury that leaves the woman with chronic incontinence and, in most cases, a stillborn child.
• The Rotary Club of Coimbatore Gaalaxy, India, together with Nehru Yura Kendra Ministry of Youth and Sports, Government of India, coordinated an AIDS Awareness campaign including a 10K rally with 3,000 university students and a group of artists who performed dances and street plays in local markets around the city.
• The Rotary Club of Nardo, Italy, partnered with foundations in Italy and Haiti, including Rotary clubs in Haiti, to implement Phase 1 of a malaria project in Haiti. The club helped procure and distribute 15,000 doses of anti-malaria drugs and worked with the foundations to facilitate access to the community, meet government regulations, and generate community trust in the project.

'Rotary and Health' is a Rotary International publication