Rotary’s 2020 World Polio Day Online Global Update program on 24 October hails this year’s historic achievement in polio eradication: Africa being declared free of the wild poliovirus.
Paralympic medalist and TV presenter Ade Adepitan, who co-hosts this year’s program, says that the eradication of polio in Africa was personal for him. “Since I was born in Nigeria, this achievement is close to my heart,” says Adepitan, a polio survivor who contracted the disease as a child. “I’ve been waiting for this day since I was young.”
He notes that, just a decade ago, three-quarters of all of the world’s polio cases caused by the wild virus were contracted in Africa. Now, more than a billion Africans are safe from the disease. “But we’re not done,” Adepitan cautions. “We’re in pursuit of an even greater triumph — a world without polio. And I can’t wait.”
Rotary Foundation Trustee Geeta Manek, who co-hosts the program with Adepitan, says that World Polio Day is an opportunity for Rotary members to be motivated to “continue this fight.”
She adds, “Rotarians around the world are working tirelessly to support the global effort to end polio.”
The future of the fight against polio
Rotary’s challenge now is to eradicate the wild poliovirus in the two countries where the disease has never been stopped: Afghanistan and Pakistan. Routine immunizations must also be strengthened in Africa to keep the virus from returning there.
To eradicate polio, multiple high-quality immunization campaigns must be carried out each year in polio-affected and high-risk countries. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s necessary to maintain populations’ immunity against polio while also protecting health workers from the coronavirus and making sure they don’t transmit it.
Rotary has contributed more than $2.1 billion to polio eradication since it launched the PolioPlus program in 1985, and it’s committed to raising $50 million each year for polio eradication activities. Because of a 2-to-1 matching agreement with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, that means that, each year, $150 million goes toward fulfilling Rotary’s promise to the children of the world: No child will ever again suffer the devastating effects of polio.
|
SILVER CIRCLE
No draw this week due to Andrew's absence. There will be two draws at our next meeting 10 November.
Pentecost Island Project
Service Director Harold and a team of Burleigh Rotaractors transported hospital beds and other medical equipment from storage to the Surfers Sunrise shed where they were loaded into a container ready for shipment to Vanuatu.
  |
