Date Added:
30 July 2009
As any business leader will know, sometimes it’s easy to start something, finishing it well takes concentration and guts. Not, as you may think, a quote from one of the London Marathon finishers, dragging round an unfeasible costume or an unwilling body, but a comment that equally applies to the world battle against polio.
When Mike Clark lead the formation of Alresford Rotary back in 86, Rotary International was just starting its campaign with the promise to rid the world of polio – an eminently avoidable disease. In 1985 there had been 350,000 cases in 125 countries. Alresford responded immediately and has continued to support the campaign every year since.
Today there are only 4 endemic countries: India, Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan. Working with the World Health Organisation, Rotary has encouraged many companies and organisations worldwide, including most famously the Bill Gates Foundation, to contribute towards the campaign - a vaccine shot cost 60 cents. Rotary has been able to do more than fund-raise. Organising the vaccination of millions of people takes some doing. We have been able to mobilise thousands of volunteers to set up and run National Immunisation Days – sometimes its ordinary volunteers that make the difference.
For 2008 there were 1,633 worldwide cases of polio. This includes 31 cases in Afghanistan, 552 in India, 790 in Nigeria, and 118 in Pakistan.
Find out more at http://www.rotary.org/en/EndPolio
Author:
Roger
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