It's an authentic iron lung, designed in 1937 in Australian and donated by Prince Henry Hospital. It will be on display at East Maitland Library on Friday.

It has been lent to East Maitland Rotary this week as a way of helping promote Rotary International's worldwide focus in October, to rid the world of polio once and for all.

Maitland is the first port of call for the iron lung, before it heads to a series of regional centres - next stop, Dubbo on Monday.

"Polio was only officially eradicated in Australia in 2000 - that's only 20 years ago," East Maitland Rotary's foundation director Brian Morgan said.

"Africa was declared polio free by the World Health Organisation earlier this year which leaves two countries where it is still a factor - in Pakistan and Afghanistan."

Religious beliefs - and the presence of the Taliban too - have meant that the use of vaccines there is contentious.

But why an iron lung?

"Polio doesn't just affect the lower limbs," Mr Morgan explained. "It affects the lungs and breathing. They can become paralysed making it impossible to breathe.

"For many years before vaccine was developed, an iron lung was the only way to keep people alive. It was literally a life-saving piece of equipment."

World Health Organisation statistics show that polio - or poliomyelitis to give it its full name - mainly affects children under five. One in 200 infections leads to paralysis, and, of those, up to 10 per cent die when their breathing muscles become paralysed.

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