Harborough Rotary Club members paint the town purple for World Polio Day

Purple crocus bulbs were handed out in Harborough to mark the local Rotary Club’s work to help eradicate polio.

The flower symbolises the purple marking of an immunised child’s finger to show they had been vaccinated.

Last week, to mark World Polio Day on October 24, the club used a display stand in the library to shine a light on the Rotary’s Global Polio Eradication campaign.

It followed crocus donations to district schools and care homes. Harborough in Bloom also received bulbs to plant in time for spring.

In the last few decades, polio – a life-threatening condition which causes paralysis particularly in young children – has been eliminated almost entirely.

The achievement is thanks to support from Rotary Clubs around the world, as well as The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, for the ongoing World Health Organisation campaign.

Club president, Les Dodd, explained: “All Rotary club members around the world are rightly proud of the successes of eradicating global polio. I am also very proud of my fellow local Rotary club members.”

Thousands of Rotary Clubs across the world have helped immunise more than 2.5billion children against polio in 122 countries, reducing the disease by 99.9 per cent worldwide.

Rotary International began its fight against polio in 1979 with a pledge to immunise six million children in the Philippines. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative was launched between Rotary International and the WHO in 1988, with an estimated 350,000 cases across 125 countries. By 2014, polio cases were down by 99 per cent.