Sunday 7 April 2013

One case of polio anywhere is a threat everywhere

“One case of polio anywhere is a threat everywhere” emphasised d’Arcy Lunn, Global Poverty Project advisor and ambassador for the End of Polio Campaign, in a dynamic and thought-provoking speech on March 19 at The Rotary Club of Plimmerton in Wellington, New Zealand.

Polio is our common enemy. It usually affects children under the age of five.

223 cases of polio were reported in 2012, only a little more than one-third of the 650 cases reported in 2011. So far this year only 16 cases have been reported compared with 36 cases for the same time last year. In more good news, India marked its second year without polio on January 13, 2013.

The annual incidence of polio has decreased more than 99% since the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was launched in 1988 when about 350,000 children were infected each year in 125 endemic countries. The wild polio virus is now endemic in only three countries – Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria. Yet, in 2010 we saw the resurgence of polio in six countries, many that had been polio-free for long periods of time. If polio exists anywhere in the world it is a threat to everyone, everywhere. Containment of polio is not an option. Eradication is the only solution.

Without a commitment from the global community to immunize every last child, this debilitating disease could start to spread again with a vengeance. All it takes is two drops of vaccine.

Plus financial support. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently donated US$100 million to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative through his charitable foundation. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has contributed more than US$1.5 billion to fight polio and, in the past three decades, Rotarians around the world have contributed more than US$1.2 billion to end this scourge. Since the initiative began in 1988, 2.5 billion children around the world have been immunised.

Each one of us can help. We can help by encouraging all the parents we know to immunise their child. And we can donate to Rotary’s PolioPlus programme. Go to http://www.endpolio.org/


Submitted by:  Wendy Betteridge, Rotary Club of Plimmerton www.plimmerton.rotarysouthpacific.org