Ross Grillo from the Griffith Rotary Club has restored the iron lung so that it is now in working order, so that people in the small towns of NSW get an understanding of what an Iron Lung is and how it was used to treat Polio sufferers.

Acute poliomyelitis (polio, also known as 'infantile paralysis') is an anterior motor horn cell disease.

Polio can strike at any age, but affects mainly children under three (over 50% of all cases). The virus enters the body through the mouth and multiplies in the intestine.

Initial symptoms are fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, stiffness in the neck and pain in the limbs.

One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis, usually in the legs.

Amongst those paralysed, 5%-10% die when their breathing muscles become immobilized. 

There is no cure for polio, it can only be prevented through immunisation. Polio vaccine, given multiple times, almost always protects a child for life. Full immunisation will markedly reduce an individual's risk of developing paralytic polio.

Full immunisation will protect most people, however individuals can still contract the disease due to the failure of some individuals to respond to the vaccine.

Large polio epidemics caused panic every summer during the 1940's and 50's in industrialised countries.

At that time, people with polio affecting the respiratory muscles were immobilized inside "iron lungs",  huge metal cylinders that operated like a pair of bellows to regulate their breathing and keep them alive.

Today, the iron lung has largely been replaced by the positive pressure ventilator; nevertheless, it is still in use in some countries. 

Harden Murrumburrah Rotary President, Robert Scott has taken 'Maggie' to the local schools to educate the students

"It is so important that we get the message out there on the importance of immunisation," Mr Scott said.

"Polio cases have gone from 365 000 cases diagnosed in 1985, to 31 cases in 2018."

"We  are close, but need to eradicate Polio across the world, by introducing immunisation to every country."

Australia, along with the Western Pacific Region, was declared polio-free in 2000. 

New cases of polio in Australia are rare, but the disease remains a health risk for travellers to some countries of the world.

Since 1986, the only new case of polio in Australia was reported in July 2007. This person was a traveller who acquired his infection in Pakistan.