Rotary International chapters across North America and beyond held fundraising events on Saturday to mark World Polio Day, pressing a decades-long campaign to eradicate the disease into its final and most difficult phase. The Chemainus Valley Rotary Club in British Columbia staged a community event to raise money for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

World Polio Day falls annually on October 24, the birthday of Jonas Salk, who developed the first polio vaccine. Rotary International has committed more than $2.9bn to the eradication effort since 1985 and works alongside the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation matches Rotary donations two-to-one.

Wild poliovirus remains endemic only in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where conflict and vaccine hesitancy have complicated immunisation campaigns. Health officials have also tracked circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus in parts of Africa and detected the virus in wastewater samples in several high-income countries, including the United States and United Kingdom, in recent years.

Rotary leaders warned that funding gaps and declining childhood immunisation rates threaten to reverse hard-won gains. A spokesperson for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative said sustained financing is essential to reach the remaining unvaccinated children before the virus can resurge.

"We are closer than ever, but the last mile is the hardest," a Rotary International representative said in materials promoting the day's events, urging continued donations toward the organisation's annual fundraising target.