Winchester Rotary Club ‘walks a mile to end Polio’

October 24 marks World Polio Day and every year Rotary clubs across the country back the campaign to rid the world of the disease.

This year, Winchester Rotarians joined the ‘Walk a Mile to End Polio’, trekking a mile for £1, with an emphasis on raising awareness.

Les Haswell, Winchester Rotary president, Gillian Russell, Cllr Russell Gordon-Smith and Dr Kordo Saeed (Image: Winchester Rotary)

Before the walk began, two polio survivors and members of Winchester Rotary, explained the need to keep going, with the disease nearly being eradicated.

Dr Kordo Saeed, honorary professor of microbiology at Southampton University and Gillian Russell, a former Winchester Rotary president, both contracted polio as children. 

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Walkers around the King Alfred Statue (Image: Winchester Rotary)

Participants started and finished in the Cathedral Close, following a route around the city centre and passing sites where the club had previously planted purple crocuses (the symbol of the campaign).

The group was delighted to be joined on the walk by the deputy mayor, Cllr Russell Gordon-Smith. 

The club is still accepting donations at rotaryfoundationgbi.beaconforms.com/form/.

Polio is a paralysing and sometimes fatal infectious disease, which typically affects children under the age of five.

Since the organisation and its partners launched the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) more than 30 years ago, the incidence of polio has plummeted by more than 99.99 per cent from about 350,000 cases a year in 125 countries to approximately 30 last year.