“A lovely display of purple crocuses planted in the grounds of St Chad’s, Norton in Hales by the children of the village school, helped by the Norton in Bloom Group, in previous autumns. The plantings were sponsored by the Rotary Club of Newcastle under Lyme as part of Rotary International’s “End Polio Now” campaign and the purple represents the purple dye dabbed on a child’s finger to indicate they have received two drops of the polio vaccine during a National Immunisation Day.
When the programme began over 30 years ago, globally there were around 1,000 reported cases a day. So far to the end of February, in 2019 there have been just six cases of polio recorded, two in Afghanistan and four in Pakistan. We are nearly there!”
