End Polio Now
Posted by Thie Convery
POLIO UPDATE
Polio is a horrible, crippling and incurable disease. BUT polio is also a preventable disease with the use of vaccination. And with the help of Rotary District 7090, polio is on track to become the second human disease ever to be eliminated from the world, with smallpox being the first.
When the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was started, back to the mid-1980s, there were 350,000 cases of polio reported per year. This past September, Rotary helped make history when Nigeria was declared polio free. That leaves only Afghanistan and Pakistan as polio-endemic countries! So far in 2015, we have seen only 51 cases of the wild poliovirus as follows:
Afghanistan 13
Pakistan 38
To date, Rotary has contributed more than US$1.5 billion to fight polio. And through 2018, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will match 2:1 every dollar that Rotary commits to polio eradication.
During the recent World Polio Day livestream event, Rotary International announced they will be contributing another US$40.4 million to support immunization activities, through the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.
If you or members of your Club were not available for the recent World Polio Day livestream, it’s not too late! You can still watch the recording at:
We are “this close”!
Yours in polio eradication,
Thie Convery
Dundas Rotary Club
Chair, End Polio Now, Rotary District 7090
PS - And speaking of polio, check out this link shared on Twitter by Bill Gates. It includes this video, which is a great visualization of what it looks like when a virus (in this case, polio) disappears from the face of the Earth. It's pretty striking! Kristen Johnson Lombardi of Jamestown had this on their newsletter. We are truly THIS CLOSE!