I was invited to go to India and take part in a National Immunization Day with Rotarians. This was going to be very special for me. Before leaving for India, I did as much research as possible as to what I should expect. For 20 years so many people have worked tirelessly behind the scenes to develop the immunization campaign. I would spend the time I had in India in Moradabad. This was where I took part in the eradication programme in Moradabad in Utter Pradesh, both on the static booth day and the house-to-house day. The following film captures my first experience in the world largest public health campaign.

I met with UNICEF, WHO, and the local government. It was completely overwhelming to understand the amazing work of the partner organizations. UNICEF who are experts at working with children, mobilise the foot soldiers. UNICEF also buys the vaccines, which WHO authorise. WHO, are amazing when it comes to global public health programmes. They have great strategies and an accurate surveillance system to track each polio case almost as immediately as they occur. I was privileged to have been invited to Geneva recently to sit in on WHO weekly polio meeting. I was in awe of how brilliantly they work and think. The UN, with it’s specialized agencies is a fantastic organization – not perfect of course – but fantastic. Things would be much worse without the UN, WHO, UNICEF and of course Rotary International.

filmed February 21, 2010 at BBC Centre, Wood Land, London.

Tourists taking snaps of the Houses of Parliament got a little something extra in their photos during the weekend of 21st February, when Rotary illuminated the iconic building with the words End Polio Now.

The dramatic message – Rotary’s pledge to rid the world of the crippling disease – was projected on to the structure on Saturday (21 February) as part of an international initiative to encourage the world to get behind the final push to eradicate polio from the four remaining endemic countries.

Other buildings being illuminated in the week of Rotary’s 104th birthday (23 February) include the Sydney Opera House, the Coliseum in Rome, Cape Town, the prestigious Culzean Castle in Glasgow and High Falls in Rochester New York.

Is eradication possible? Is it worth the enormous cost?

Newshour on the BBC World Service brought together public health experts with very different opinions to debate the issue.

Dr Bruce Aylward is director of the polio eradication programme of the World Health Organisation and Dr D.A. Henderson of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center led the WHO’s successful effort to eradicate smallpox.

Newshour also heard from Nigeria, one of the countries where the polio virus still thrives and from Gautam Lewis, a British pilot and a polio campaigner who suffered from polio as a young child in India. Gautam has spent the last few years assisting Rotary International in their vision for a polio free world.

Listen to the debate, courtesy of the BBC (25 mins 29 secs) / first broadcast 21 February 2009 ( we have added a slideshow to go along with the radio debate)

Click here for more BBC World Service news programmes

The Award was presented to Rotary International’s Polio Ambassador Gautam Lewis at Asian Who’s Who International’s 21st annual book launch and awards ceremony which took place at a glittering gala dinner in London’s Dorchester Hotel, Park Lane, on Friday, 24th October, 2008, attended by more than 300 guests, including Asian business tycoons, politicians, peers and celebrities.

Gautam Lewis said: ‘I started of life abandoned on the mean streets of Kolkata because of polio and as an adult have gone back to help eradicate polio. To receive this Award is a great honour and I would like to acknowledge everyone at Rotary for the work that is being done to end polio. I am accepting this award on behalf of all of the Rotarians and people involved in this global goal to eradicate polio.’

BBC London presenter Riz Lateef and Asian of the Year 1996 Raj Loomba of the Loomba Foundation presented Gautam with the award.

At the annual Asian Who’s Who dinner at the Dorchester Hotel, Gautam Lewis, who thinks his original name might have been Gautam De, crutched to the stage to the loudest applause of the evening and collected a prestigious award for “Asian Leadership in Charity”. He accepted the award humbly on behalf of all the partner organisations in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, Rotary International, WHO, UNICEF and the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for their inspiration and back-breaking work during the past 20 years in the fight against polio.

Gautam, whose charitable work now takes him to India several times a year — was interviewed by presenter Matthew Amroliwala live on BBC Television Worldwide where his inspirational story was heard by an estimated 80 million viewers.

The Asian Who’s Who International celebrated the publication of its 21st edition and was founded by Mr Jasbir Signh Sacher. It started in 1975, some 33 years ago. During the 60′s and 70′s a large influx of Asians from South Asia and Africa came to the UK.  Michael Jackson’s brother, Jermaine came up to Gautam at the end of the evening to congratulate him on his award and said “what an amazing thing you are doing”.

The Full Circle photo exhibition, jointly organised by RIBI and RI, depicted the fight against polio through the photographs of London polio survivor and advocate Gautam Lewis of Freedom in the Air who, recently returned to his birthplace of Kolkata, India, to immunize children against the disease.

The massive global undertaking of polio eradication led by Rotary and its partners was further illustrated by the images of photographer Jean-Marc Giboux who has documented the battle against polio in its remaining strongholds of India, Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan throughout the past decade.

More than 100 people attended the launch party of the week-long exhibition including the High Commissioner for Pakistan, representatives from the World Health Organisation, Dfid, Sightsavers, The Stroke Association, the UK Department of Health and over 60 people from the world of business, fashion, music and film, many of them commenting that they were astounded at Rotary’s involvement with Polio eradication.