Six Colchester primary schools have raised £1,400 by wearing purple to help end the disease polio worldwide with Colchester's Rotary Club.

World Polio Day is known as 'National Purple Pinkie Day' due to children receiving a dab of purple dye on their little finger or 'pinkie' when immunised, and is normally held on October 24. 

Rotary club member Nigel Hildreth revealed that as well as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation doubling the donation this donation will now be tripled meaning £4,200 has been raised for the ongoing Rotary 'End Polio Now' Fund. 

Colchester has four Rotary Clubs - an international network of social groups which are charities that fundraise for local and international causes.  

Gazette: Purple - Purple crocuses were also donated to the 'End Polio Now' fund and were planted by the Rotary Club of Colchester in Castle ParkPurple - Purple crocuses were also donated to the 'End Polio Now' fund and were planted by the Rotary Club of Colchester in Castle Park (Image: Submitted)

Since 1985, Rotary's key humanitarian priority has been to rid the world of polio and at the time there were over 1,000 polio cases a day in 125 countries, paralysing and even killing children.

Now cases are down 99.9 per cent but in more than 50 countries over 400 million children fail to receive their polio vaccinations, multiple times a year each year, from health partners.  

While failure to eradicate polio could result in as many as 200,000 new cases worldwide in a decade.