Poliomyelitis, to most Americans, is the virus that crippled Franklin Roosevelt before he became the nation's longest serving chief executive.

The parents of baby boomers mostly escaped the constant fear that their child would one day come home with aching legs and spend a lifetime in an iron lung.

The man who now heads the foundation of an organization that helped eradicate Type 2 polio was in Decatur this week to address the Rotary Club Daybreak.

Canadian Dr. Robert Scott is chairman of the Rotary Foundation of Rotary International. Through Rotary's PolioPlus program that began in 1985, Rotary has helped stamp out Type 2 polio. Now world health agencies are concentrating on Types 1 and 3, again with Rotary's help. Over the years Rotary International members have raised $565 million for the fight.

Time for self-congratulation? Hardly. The Types 1 and 3 viruses are alive globally.

The number of polio cases dropped from 350,000 to 1,189 between 1988 and 2004, but began to climb again in 2005. Sure, these cases are in Third World and violence-torn regions, but they still are a jet flight's time away from the heart of the United States.

Four countries remain polio endemic: Nigeria, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The poliovirus crossed borders into Angola, Chad, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Nepal, Niger, Somalia and Yemen during the past 18 months.

Thus, Rotary has more work to do. Types 1 and 3 of the polioviruses are still out there.

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