Rotary Club of Vermilion
Meeting Minutes October 18, 2018
6:45 am-Club Room, Vermilion Regional Centre
Breakfast Started early-6:45am
Call to Order
O Canada
Rotary Grace
Four Way Test
Guests: Jason Whiting, Dr. Richard Starke, and Janelle Saskiw
Birthdays & Anniversaries:
Lisa Beveridge (Oct 21)
Shawn Jacula (Oct 23)
Mary Lee & Blake Prior (Oct 24)
Scott Webb (Rotary Anniversary-Oct 21)
Announcements:
Thank you Team 1 for Breakfast
Rotary Foundation: To encourage members to donate to Foundation, we have a matching project set up for the months of October and November. If you donate up to $100 to the foundation in Oct & Nov the club will match the donation dollar for dollar, in your name. If you donate more than $100, you will qualify for a proportionate match for the amount over $100 if not everyone takes advantage of the matching program. We have a club budget of $3000 and it will all be used to match donations. You can give your cheque to Eugene or donate online and print a donation receipt copy for Eugene-this all needs to be in by Dec. 6th to qualify.
Off-Site Meeting-November 29th at Animal Health Centre LLC. A sign-up sheet will be passed around in November to confirm attendance. You are welcome to invite a spouse or a guest to join us for that meeting.
Youth Exchange Survey-Please make sure survey is complete and returned to Dawn by Oct 25th.
Volunteer Hour-binder is being passed around. Please fill out Sept. hours.
Jason Whiting Presentation: In 2017 Jason was travelling in the area and really wanted to go to Pakistan to see at that level the Polio program in action. Jason spent 2 weeks in Pakistan seeing first hand the war on Polio. He was welcomed by Rotarians everywhere he went-generous hospitality. Through Rotary he met Aziz who Skyped with us. Aziz is the National Chair for Rotary-Polio Plus.
There are three remaining countries that have Polio-Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Nigeria is very close to being polio free. They will be declared polio free next Aug 2019 if there are no more cases. Pakistan has a good functioning program in place. Afghanistan is less stable; with the Taliban presence and with a population that moves around more. For centuries there have been people crossing this unguarded border. There were 22 cases of polio in 2017 in Pakistan (not sure on that).
One of the strategies is to have a national immunization days (NID) drops are given to everyone on the same day, so no child should get missed. It is a challenge to not miss some children in populations who move and there are also some that do not want immunization-this is mostly due to mis-infomation and fear. Getting the vaccination is voluntary and the rate of refusal has gone down. Being a vaccinator has risk involved-there have been 187 vaccinators killed; the last one was just this past January. A game changer for the program has been to hire local women who are more readily accepted and trusted. There are P.T.P. -permanent transit posts that catch buses/trains-they are watching for children. One of Jason’s slides was a transit post, it was a tiny tin shed (very hot) with not much more that a fridge in it-keeping the vaccination cool. Apparently, it is not an issue if someone is vaccinated twice. In addition to immunization they still need to be vigilant for signs of polio, monitoring and sampling for wild polio, and immunization for other diseases. There is also the problem that failure to stop polio could result in ongoing transmission and new cases emerging. There was a great deal of information and it is difficult to include it all. I missed getting much of the statistics down-but it is the stories that left the greatest impression.
Having Jason there to share his first-hand experience and Aziz who is so knowledgeable was great. We are so close, but it is not the end. They will never stop, whatever the challenge, they will keep going.
Sargent Report: If you are feeling lucky to have the health system that we do and to have Gloria DeJong track you down for your immunization; then please donate a buck.
Meeting adjourned.