By: Saeed Akhtar, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Tilbury Times Reporter
The Rotary Club of Tilbury has expressed heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported its 2024 Pizza for Polio fundraiser, coinciding with World Polio Day.
Local pizza sponsors — Naples Pizza and The Alley Pub & Grill in Tilbury, The Garage in Merlin, and OG Pizza in Wheatley and Comber — partnered with the Rotary to support the global fight against polio. Through purchases from these businesses, community members contributed to Rotary International’s mission of eradicating polio worldwide.
Thanks to generous contributions from pizza sponsors, private donors, and matching funds from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, this year’s event raised enough funds to provide polio immunizations for 2,430 children.
Polio, a highly contagious viral disease, can cause severe paralysis and death. Since 1988, more than 2.5 billion children have been vaccinated against polio, resulting in a 99% reduction in global cases. However, the disease has not yet been eradicated, and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) aims to eliminate it completely by 2026.
The GPEI is a global partnership involving the World Health Organization, Rotary International, UNICEF, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Canada, the first bilateral donor to the GPEI, announced $151 million in additional funding at the Rotary International Conference in Toronto this September, bringing the country’s total contributions to over $1 billion.
Polio once caused devastating outbreaks, leaving many children paralyzed and requiring some to live in iron lungs to breathe. The introduction of vaccines in 1955 marked a turning point in combating the disease.
