POLIO PLUS FACTS UPDATE FROM BOYD

Past RI President, William Boyd, recently presented the following Polio Plus news at the Zone Institute held last week in Nassau.

"Routine immunization in South Africa has grown from 50% to 70% due to the Rotary Polio Immunization system.

The Indian Government has contributed more to Polio Eradication than the USA and the G8 countries combined.

The G8 countries had all but "forgotten" about polio eradication until the Gates Foundation prompted them to place it back on the agenda.

Saudi Arabia requires all Moslems seeking to take part in the annual Haj pilgrimage to Mecca to be fully immunized. All arriving participants are given the polio drops.

A recent Harvard analysis of the economic benefit arising from the Polio Eradication concluded that it was a benefit of $180 billion to the USA alone (for an investment which was $4 billion)

WHO believes as strongly as Rotary does, that they will lose their credibility if we fail to eradicate polio. They further believe they will be able to use the Polio Eradication Program as a platform for dealing with future health issues.

$7.9 million of the Polio Plus funds have been set aside for research for the new drugs that will be needed to deal with the carriers of the polio virus - in whom the disease does not show itself. In addition, there are slight variations in all generations of the virus which means that a test can pinpoint the exact location (city, block and person) who has passed on the virus!

Because of the delay by the Nigerian government in permitting the NID's, a further 20 countries were affected. The movement of people around the world means the virus will continue to be spread until it is completely eradicated as a result, since 2007, five countries, which were previously cleared, have had new cases. However, in the remaining 4 countries, the numbers of new cases are dropping dramatically.

Last week, two doctors and a driver were killed by a car bomb in Afghanistan , despite the fact that they were travelling in a UN marked vehicle and that there had been an agreement by both the Taliban and afghan forces for a day of peace in order to proceed with the NID."

Since 1985, Rotary has made polio eradication its top priority and has contributed $633 million to the effort. Rotary is the largest single private-sector donor to the polio eradication campaign.