Barrow town hall lights up for Polio day

Barrow Town hall will be turning purple this weekend to honour world polio day.

Poliomyelitis, or polio, is a paralyzing and potentially fatal disease that still threatens children in some parts of the world.

Poliovirus invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis in hours. It can strike people of any age but mainly affects children under five.

Polio can be prevented by vaccines, but it is not curable. Unlike most diseases, polio can be eradicated.

For more than 30 years, Rotary Club of Furness and clubs across the country with their partners have driven the effort to eradicate polio worldwide.

The clubs PolioPlus program was the first initiative to tackle global polio eradication by vaccinating children on a massive scale. As a core partner in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, Rotary focuses on advocacy, fundraising, volunteer recruitment, and awareness-building.

Rotary members have contributed more than $2.2 billion and countless volunteer hours to protect nearly 3 billion children in 122 countries from this paralyzing disease. Rotary’s advocacy efforts have played a role in decisions by governments to contribute more than $10 billion to the effort.