Published: Thursday, 21st November 2019
Children from King’s Lynn Nursery School planted purple bulbs just outside their entrance in the Walks, King’s Lynn on Tuesday 19 November.
Alongside them were members of the King’s Lynn Rotary Club who are raising awareness of their Purple4Polio campaign, Cllr Elizabeth Nockolds and the team from the borough council who look after the Walks.
Purple4Polio is a Rotary club fundraising campaign aimed at eradicating the infectious disease worldwide.
It is hoped that children, their parents and visitors to The Walks over the next few months can enjoy seeing the purple bulbs bloom.
When the Rotary Club of Great Britain and Ireland began its pledge to end polio in 1985 there were 125 polio endemic countries. Today, there are now just three, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria.
Polio mainly affects children under the age of 5. Rotary has helped immunise 2.5 billion children globally since 1985. It costs 20p to protect a child with the polio vaccine.
Until polio is totally eradicated, every child is at risk of this highly infectious, potentially life-threatening and paralysing disease.
When the world is declared polio free, it will be just the second human disease ever to be eradicated, after smallpox.
