Dare to Dream (2017)

By 1979 the wild polio virus was eradicated from the US and the entire developed world. Yet even though the Salk and Sabin vaccines had proven successful in eradicating the virus, there were still more than 1,000 cases of polio being reported around the world in developing countries every day. Rotary International, one of the world's largest international service organizations, was searching for a way to celebrate the organization's 75th anniversary. Having set a goal of raising $12 million, they hoped to do something that was international in scope and that could have a major impact on world health. In 1979, a very small group of Rotary visionaries decided that worldwide polio eradication was actually possible, and began a crusade that is possibly the most successful public health campaign in the history of the world. Today, WHO officials report that there have only been 8 cases of wild polio virus worldwide in 2017. Most experts expect the world to be polio free in the next year or two, and when this milestone is achieved, it will be only the second time in history that a wild virus has been completely eradicated.