End Polio Now
by Lorine Parks
October 24 was World Polio Day, and Shirley Giltzow from the Lawndale Rotary Club came to update us on Rotary’s amazing progress with its main international project, eradicating polio worldwide. When you consider that in 1996 there were 336,000 cases reported in 126 different countries, and so far this year of 2012, only 160 cases from just three countries, you can see that this scourge of children and adults as well, is almost gone.
The next amazing statistic is that India was removed from the list of countries still reporting polio, and this is happening much earlier and easier than was expected. With the second most numerous people on earth, India has a large part of its population in flux and in transit. But our polio people got to them, every last one. The last case reported in India was almost two years ago, in January 2011.
Of course, as long as any polio virus exists, it can always infect and multiply. It would only take four years to re-infect the whole world again, if there were an epidemic. That is why Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria still receive our constant attention. But war and civil war in these countries make it hard for natives to trust workers, whom they believe are there to attempt genocide on their population with what we tell them is polio vaccine.
Polio can be given with either a liquid dosage dropped in the eye of a baby, or by a hypodermic shot. Children don’t like to see the needle coming, but in some places due to lack of sanitation and cold storage facilities, there is no alternative to the shot.
One dose cost ten cents, and children, with their rapid metabolism and growing tissue, need a course of 6 doses. This means sixty cents per child, that’s right, $.60, will immunize them for the rest of their life against dying from or being crippled by polio. The polio vaccine is paid for through our club donations but also foundations that work with us, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Every ticket you buy to the Paul Harris Ball, goes to the Paul Harris Foundation.