Rotary Club of Sandy Springs Fights To Eradicate Polio

Submitted by Sally Wyeth, Rotary Club of Sandy Springs

The Rotary Club of Sandy Springs, which was not yet chartered when polio placed fear in American hearts, recognizes World Polio Day -- Oct. 24 -- by noting Rotary International’s worldwide efforts to eradicate the disease in places where it still cripples and kills, and by informing people about polio’s highly contagious effects.

People may take part in World Polio Day with a livestream event at 6:30 p.m. EDT on Friday, Oct. 23.

Some will remember well when polio was a public health concern, and will recall family and friends who contracted the disease. Some will have visited Roosevelt Warm Springs in Georgia for polio therapy or had family members stay at Grady Hospital’s polio clinic, the only one in Georgia.

Those born in the tech age and who’ve lived without the fear of polio won’t know what American life was like before a vaccine could protect us from polio.

Today, Pakistan and Afghanistan remain the only countries where polio remains endemic, which means regularly found in a particular region. A milestone was reached this year when Nigeria reported no polio cases over a one-year period.

How did polio become well on its way to become the second disease -- smallpox being the first -- eradicated from the earth through mankind’s efforts? Much of the heavy lifting has been done through the coordinated efforts of the World Health Organization, Rotary International, the CDC, and UNICEF through the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

Vulnerable areas now include Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia and Syria, according to polioeradication.org.

The eradication of polio outside America had its start in 1979, when Rotarians joined together to inoculate 6 million people in the Philippines. 1985 saw Rotary International create PolioPlus and its membership pledged $120 million at a time when there were 125 polio endemic countries in the world.

Rotary International and its worldwide membership of 1.2 million people have contributed more than $1.3 billion towards the effort to eradicate polio and have helped immunize over 2.5 billion children in 122 countries according to Rotary International’s polio fact sheet.

Rotary International’s PolioPlus campaign and its $200 Million Challenge, was matched by $355 million in grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Rotary Club of Sandy Springs, along with thousands of other Rotary Clubs throughout the world, contribute to PolioPlus and provide volunteers to help distribute polio vaccines to regions of the world where the virus still affects people, mostly children under five years of age.

You can learn more about polio and Rotary International’s eradication efforts by visiting the following sites: Post-Polio Syndrome, Rotary International, PolioPlus, Global Polio Eradication Initiative and Roosevelt Warm Springs.

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Photo 1: an iron lung machine which is displayed at Roosevelt Warm Springs, Georgia.
Photo 2: Franklin Delano Roosevelt swimming in the Warm Springs pool and various braces on display at Roosevelt Warm Springs, Georgia
Photo credits: Sally Wyeth