Key messages in our fight against Polio

·        Rotary and The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation together contribute more annually than any single national government to the fight against polio. With economic conditions constraining government aid budgets the world over, how important are the contributions of private or community sector organisations like Rotary and The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to actually ending polio?

·        You've worked closely together with Rotary International and their PolioPlus program which they started in 1985. More recently, your foundation in fact challenged Rotary to raise a further $200 million themselves in the quest to eradicate polio, in exchange for a $255 million contribution to the initiative from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In terms of the global effort, what was it that made you decide to partner with Rotary in their quest to end polio forever?

·       In 2012, not one new case of polio was recorded in India and the disease now remains endemic in just three countries in the world. Given the progress that new cases of polio have been reduced by more than 99.9% since the Global Polio Eradication Initiative began in the 1980's,  what remain the biggest challenges in finishing off the disease and how can the public get behind the effort to finally end polio?