In North America, Polio epidemics in the 1940s and 1950s took thousands of lives and paralyzed tens of thousands more, putting many in iron lungs, until newly-developed polio vaccines finally provided protection from the virus.
It was a different story, in countries around the world.
When Rotary International first launched its campaign to end polio 40 years ago, the statistics were dire. Even as late as the 1980s, more than 350,000 children were paralyzed by polio every year.
Rotary International launched its End Polio campaign, with the goals of sending health workers to the countries where the wild polio virus was found, immunizing hundreds of thousands of children against polio each year, and improving monitoring to ensure that every new case was reported.
Rotary’s first immunization project took place in the Philippines, in September of 1979. Since then, the End Polio campaign has immunized over 2.5 billion children, in 122 countries – reducing the number of polio cases by 99.9 percent world-wide.
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative is now a partnership, of Rotary, UNICEF, the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and governments around the world.
In 2019, the number of countries where polio is still endemic can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
They include Pakistan and Afghanistan – where unrest has made immunization efforts difficult.
Nigeria has been free of new polio cases for three years. “If they can go to the end of this year (without a new case being reported), they’ll be officially polio-free,” said Rotary Club of Innisfil president Anne Kell.
On Oct. 24 – World Polio Day – Kell and other members of the Innisfil Rotary Club were joined by Innisfil Fire & Rescue in a Walk to End Polio Now.
They started at No Frills and headed down Innisfil Beach Road, accompanied by a fire truck, to the Alcona Sobeys - waving placards and handing out information on the effort to achieve a Polio-free world.
Despite great strides, the final push to eradicate the wild virus is facing challenges. There has been resistance to immunization programs in Pakistan and Afghanistan – and an increase in the number of cases. In 2019, by Oct. 24, there were 95 cases of wild polio reported.
More funds are needed, to complete the final push. The Walk to End Polio not only publicizes the campaign, it encourages donations – to support immunization programs, improve monitoring, and access to health care. To donate, click here.
“One last push. One last push. The end is truly in sight for the Poliomyelitis virus.” - Josette Rice, Spoken Word artist and polio survivor.
