World Polio Day falls on United Nations Day - a day where all the countries of the world can reflect on common agendas, principles and purposes.
For Rotary International, October 24 is a time for all Rotary members, health care advocates and global citizens who want a world free of polio to come together and appreciate all we have accomplished in the fight to end polio, to discuss and plan what actions we still need to implement, and to pledge funds to stop polio forever.
Bowen Island Rotary will observe World Polio Day on Saturday, October 19 from 11 am to 3 pm in the Village Square with a table set up to educate and fundraise to help eradicate polio. Cupcakes will be involved!
Polio or poliomyelitis is a viral disease that is highly infectious and affects the central nervous system, the brain, the spinal cord and can kill the nerve cells that control muscle movement causing partial or full paralysis. It can be potentially deadly and seems to most commonly affect children under the age of five. Polio can be spread by person to person contact, by human contact with infected water droplets, or by a fecal-oral route from sewage contaminated water or food.
The transmission can be from a wild or a naturally occurring virus in the environment or from introduced vaccine-derived strains. It appears that the use of soap and water helps deter the transfer of the contaminated water droplets, and the Rotary Polio Plus campaign, launched by Rotary International in 1985, supplies sanitation kits which include good hygiene products. Polio can not be cured but it can be prevented with a safe and effective Salk vaccine and an oral vaccine created by Dr. Albert Sabin in 1960.
In 1955, 10 million children received one or more injections of the Salk Vaccine researched and developed by Dr. Jonas Salk from a 1947 grant for polio research from the National Foundation of Infantile Paralysis (later called the ‘March of Dimes’ fundraising organization focusing on Polio research). The 1955 vaccine proved to be 90 per cent effective with polio cases and deaths in the United States going from a global epidemic with 1,000 children per day paralyzed from polio to being nearly halved in one year. In 2017, 430 million children were vaccinated in 39 countries.
Each year we have reached more and more children with the current estimate that Rotary and their global partners have helped vaccinate 2.5 billion children since 1979 and helped reduce polio cases by 99.9 per cent. Every newborn child, in every country, as well as all children under the age of one or who may have missed the yearly campaigns, must be vaccinated this year and receive two more shots by the age of two, and one more by the age of five.
It was estimated a few years ago that it costs on average $3 to fully vaccinate a child and protect them from polio. But it takes $100 million to conduct polio surveillance world wide. Please help Bowen Rotary fundraise to end polio now for the children of the world.
In the last few years it looked as though we were getting very close to our target of totally ridding the world of polio. There were only two countries that were polio endemic and had not managed to interrupt the transmission of the wild polio virus: Afghanistan: (1 case, Jan. 2021) (2 cases, 2022) (6 cases, 2023) and Pakistan: (1 case Jan. 2021) (19 cases, 2022) (3 cases, 2023). These countries need to have no cases for 3 years straight to be declared polio free.
This year their numbers as of Oct. 8, 2024 are: Afghanistan: 22 cases (most recent case; Aug. 30, 2024) and Pakistan: 28 cases (most recent case; Sept. 17, 2024) and unfortunately they have been joined by Gaza having cases, the first in 25 years of being polio free. There is a confirmed case in Gaza by the United Nations of a 10 month old boy who has paralysis in one leg, 1 active case, and 3 suspected cases.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has suggested that it is very likely that polio cases (likely from contaminated waste water) have infected the citizens of Gaza and are spreading amongst its population and possibly to surrounding countries. A massive two-round vaccination campaign was put into action in September 2024 with the aim of providing two drops of vaccine to 640,000 children under 10 years of age in each round.
It has been recommended that any adults working or volunteering in risky areas of the world with known outbreaks, or may be unvaccinated or incompletely vaccinated or are in health care and/or doing research where they can be exposed to the live virus, should get a booster vaccine to further increase their protection as they are all susceptible to getting polio if exposed to the virus.
This reminds us that as long as polio exists anywhere it is a risk everywhere. The Bowen Island Rotary Club invites Bowen Islanders to help young children of the world to avoid this deadly disease. We will be placing Polio Piggy Banks near the tills of several Bowen businesses where you can empty your change pocket/purses and add your contribution. All the piggy banks (and cupcakes!) will be at Village Square Saturday, October 19 from 11 am to 3 pm awaiting your donations.
Or if you wish to donate online and get a receipt, you can visit my.rotary.org/en/donate or endpolio.org/donate to donate. Please reference Bowen Island Rotary ID 83903
Over a million Rotarians have volunteered their time and contributed their resources to end polio. Please join us and help us continue our good work. Check our website at bowenrotary.com to learn more about our other volunteer endeavours here on Bowen.
