Today is World Polio Day, an annual observance of Rotary International’s fight to end polio. Tsalika Rich, president of Washington Rotary, explains the disease attacks the nervous system and can cause paralysis in a matter of hours, usually affecting children under the age of five. According to the Centers for Disease Control, only two countries reported wild poliovirus this year – 38 cases in Pakistan and 13 in Afghanistan.

Rotary began their fight to eradicate polio in the 1980s. A polio vaccine is now used to prevent the disease.

For more information, including John Thorne’s experience having polio when he was 12 years old, listen to today’s Washington Page.