By Elliott Brack, editor and publisher | Polio was a terrible menace to the world in the days when I was growing up. It was a widespread, worldwide problem, causing pain, suffering and even death to many, particularly children under age five.
Often children struck hard by polio had to live in what looked to us kids as a monster—the giant so-called “Iron lung,” which kept them alive by helping their breathing. Polio is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus. It invades the nervous system, and can cause total paralysis in a matter of hours.
No one knew yet what caused polio. So rumors flew. Some thought it was transferred through water. The swimming pools in Macon, where I grew up, were closed several summers because of that fear, with people thinking that polio was transferred by water. In my memory there still resides images of the empty swimming pools.
Although President Franklin Roosevelt had polio, many Americans did not realize how much that incapacitated him, or what he had overcome, since his office and the media seldom let him be photographed in a compromising manner, such as having difficulty walking, or him in his wheel chair.
Then along came Dr. Jonas Salk with the polio vaccine. His breakthrough would halt the spread of polio to children who took the vaccine. But there were millions of people throughout the world with polio, and others being exposed to it. How could polio be curbed? How could these children get this vaccine?
Finally, one group stepped up to take the leadership in fighting polio. It was Rotary International, that service club with members worldwide, who in 1985 launched an effort to eradicate polio worldwide. It would be a prodigious task. Could it even be done? And what would be the cost, and how would it be accomplished?
Now, some 31 years later, Rotary and its many partners are just about to cure the world of polio. It’s hard to believe. As recent as 1988, there were an estimated 350,000 polio victims. Rotary has contributed more than $1.5 billion and countless volunteer hours to immunize more than 2.5 billion children in 122 countries.
But often in trying to conquer something, for every two steps you take forward, you are beset with one step back.
As of 2015, there were only two countries in the entire world where the wild polio virus had struck. There were six cases in Afghanistan, and 28 cases in Pakistan. So far in 2016, Afghanistan reported six more cases, and only 13 in Pakistan. But this July, came a setback: two cases were reported in Nigeria. It shows how difficult it is to wipe out polio.
More than one million Rotary members have donated their time and personal resources to end polio. Every year, hundreds of Rotary members work side-by-side with health workers to vaccinate children in polio-affected countries. Rotarians work with UNICEF and other partners to prepare and distribute mass communication tools to reach people in areas isolated by conflict, geography, or poverty.
Every dollar Rotary commits to polio eradication is matched two-to-one by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, up to $35 million a year through 2018. These funds help to provide operational support, medical personnel, laboratory equipment, and educational materials for health workers and parents.
As a worldwide campaign says, the world is “this close” (picture of celebrity holding up thumb and index finger) to eradicating polio. There may be more setbacks, but look how far we have come!
The world is just “this close.”
- More: EndPolio.org
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