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Members of the Louis Trichardt Rotary Club will join the thousands of Rotarians worldwide on World Polio Day on 24 October to raise awareness about polio. Photo supplied.

Local Rotarians to help raise polio awareness

Date: 21 October 2019 By: 

On 24 October, Rotary Club Louis Trichardt will join Rotarians all over the world to raise awareness about their efforts to eradicate polio for good as part of World Polio Day.

Polio is a paralyzing and potentially fatal disease that still threatens children in some parts of the world. The polio virus invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis in a matter of hours. Polio is an infectious disease that can strike at any age but mainly affects children under five, is very contagious and is spread by swallowing contaminated food or water, or by direct contact with an infected person.  Polio is incurable but completely vaccine preventable. 

Since 24 October 1985, Rotary worldwide has embarked on a mission to stop the spread of polio in the world. At that time more than 350 000 cases of polio were present in 125 countries, which saw about 1,000 new cases per day at one stage. The name given to the Rotary project was “PolioPlus”­ but has since been renamed to  “End Polio Now”.

To date, and by the time the world is certified polio-free, Rotary’s effort will exceed $2,2 billion (US) to end the disease. This does not include the countless volunteer hours since launching its polio-immunization programme in 1985.  

Rotary has also committed to raise $50 million (US) a year, to be matched 2 to 1 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, yielding another $450 million for polio-eradication activities over the next three-year period.  Rotary’s efforts also played a huge role in decisions made by donor governments to contribute more than $7,2 billion (US) to the cause.

Rotary volunteers have spent many, many hours over years to immunize more than 2,5 billion children in 122 countries, which has eventually decreased the global incidence of polio by a massive 99.9%. They have connected more than 1,2 million members from more than 35 000 rotary clubs in almost every country in the world who worked for the global polio-eradication initiative.  Rotary is in a public-private partnership with the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centre for Disease Control, UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as well as governments of the world.

Today, only three countries in the world exist where the transmission of the polio virus has not been stopped, namely Afghanistan and Pakistan, and only last month, Indonesia, with 1 case. The total polio cases worldwide at the end of 2016 was 37, which dropped to only 14 at this stage. Nigeria, one of the last four polio-case countries, has been clean for three years.

As long as a single child has polio, all children are at risk, and Rotary will support eradication efforts where polio remains endemic, as well as efforts to keep 12 vulnerable, but clean, African countries polio free.

The Louis Trichardt Rotary club has been committed to the eradication-of-polio initiative since 1986 and contributed substantial funding via a number of fundraising efforts where club members and members of the public contributed time and funds for this deserving world initiative.

 

 
 
 

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