Athlone bridge goes purple for World Polio Day

The Rotary Club of Athlone commemorated World Polio Day on October 24 last. To mark the occasion, the railway bridge in Athlone was lit up in purple by Iarnrod Éireann.

The colour purple signifies the colour dye on the little finger of a child to show that they have received the polio vaccination.

In 1988, there were 350,000 cases of polio in 125 countries. This has been reduced by 99.9% and, as a result, 19.4 million people, who would otherwise have been paralysed, are walking and more than 1.5 million are alive who would otherwise have died.

The Rotary International Polio Plus programme was the first initiative to tackle global polio eradication by vaccinating children on a massive scale.

Recently, at the World Health Summit in Berlin, Rotary contributed $150 million towards polio eradication. This will protect 370 million children per year, over the next five years, in 50 countries.

Over the years the Rotary Club of Athlone has made significant contributions to the Polio Plus programme. Its president, Pat Ryan, said, "We will continue to support this extremely important aspect of Rotary and look forward to the day when polio will be completely eradicated worldwide."

The annual Rotary Tree of Remembrance supports two local charities (this year St Hilda's and Athlone Sub Aqua Club Search and Recovery) and also Rotary Charities, which included the Polio Plus programme.

This year has been a turbulent one in the battle against polio, with armed conflict in Afghanistan and severe flooding in Pakistan – the remaining two endemic countries. Also outbreaks of circulative vaccine derived polio virus, variants of polio virus which can emerge in under-immunised areas, have occurred in Africa, Asia and Europe, with new detections in London, New York and Israel.