Pam Dean introduced this week’s guest speaker, Dr. David Hannan of Newark, who provided members with an extensive and informative look at the history of the dread disease Polio, and efforts by many organizations, including Rotary, to eradicate it.
A 30-year member of the Rotary Club of Newark, Dr. Hannan is a Past President of that Club and has served as Board President of Camp Onseyawa, as well as being active in many Rotary projects and activities. Among these, none is more important than Rotary’s role in the effort to eradicate Polio from the earth.
Dr. Hannan noted that the Polio virus has been around for thousands of years and has no cure, although it is preventable with a vaccine. The disease mainly affects children under the age of five, and until it can be ended forever every child remains at risk.
In 1985, the year that Rotary International launched Polio Plus – an effort to immunize the world’s children against polio – the disease was endemic in 125 countries and killed or crippled more than one thousand people a day, most of them children. Since 1988, Rotary and its partners – The World Health Organization, UNICEF, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and, more recently, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – have immunized more than 2.5 billion children in countries around the world. Today, only three countries – Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria – continue to see new cases of polio, and the last of these was in February.
Although the United States saw its last case of Polio some 30 years ago Dr. Hannan noted, “we must remain very vigilant because it could come roaring back” thanks to the ease of worldwide air travel and the ease with which the virus can be spread. To prove his point, the speaker noted that early Polio Plus projections were that eradication would be complete by 1995 – yet Polio remains with us!
Today, Rotary and its partners are “this close” to making Polio the second human disease – after smallpox – to be eradicated. If you would like to learn more about the efforts of Polio Plus to end polio, and ways in which you can join this effort, log on to the website www.endpolionow.org.
