Tahoe Douglas Rotary holds "Pints for Polio" Day at Fox and Hound

STATELINE, Nev. - World Polio Day is on October 24, a day around the world where Rotary clubs join together with global health experts and partners to share their progress on the road to polio eradication.

Locally, Tahoe Douglas Rotary will be holding "Pints for Polio" at the Fox and Hound all day on Sunday. The restaurant on upper Kingsbury Grade, 237 Tramway, will donate $3 to polio immunization efforts for every pint of 805 Cerveza on tap sold. Those purchasing this beer will also receive raffle tickets for the chances to win fun prizes.

Every dollar raised will be matched two-to-one by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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.

When Rotary and its partners formed the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) in 1988, there were 350,000 cases of polio in 125 countries every year. Today, polio cases have been reduced by 99.9 percent, and just two countries continue to report cases of wild poliovirus: Afghanistan and Pakistan. Because of the efforts of Rotary and its partners, nearly 19.4 million people who would otherwise have been paralyzed are walking, and more than 1.5 million people are alive who would otherwise have died. The infrastructure we helped build to end polio is also being used to treat and prevent other diseases (including COVID-19) and create lasting impact in other areas of public health.

Rotary and its partners have immunized 2.5 billion children against polio. If polio is not fully eradicated, we could see a global resurgence of the disease with as many as 200,000 new cases each year over the next 10 years, all over the world so funds to continue to immunize continues to be important.