Today, we commemorate the 2023 World Polio Day (WPD) by joining the global community to create awareness about polio eradication and urge parents to vaccinate their children. We,– the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, and ROTARY – reaffirm our commitment to continue delivering on our promise until polio is eliminated in Ethiopia.

Polio is a highly contagious and dangerous disease caused by a virus that attacks the nervous system and 1 in 200 infected people face the risk of permanent paralysis. Therefore, the eradication of polio is considered important on a global scale and the World Polio Day is observed every year to raise awareness for the polio vaccination.

The World Polio Day will be celebrated globally on 24th October and the theme for this year is “TOGETHER, WE END POLIO” to show that the global fight to end polio needs working together and acknowledge everyone’s contribution at all levels.

The Global polio eradication core partners, the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, USAID, Rotary International, the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Gavi, the vaccine alliance have been supporting the polio eradication effort actively with a goal to eradicate polio worldwide and managed to bring the polio cases down by 100 per cent worldwide.