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