Saving Lives, a Shot@Life

I was chosen to attend a Shot@life Summit in DC February 10-14 , 2013, a day after the great Blizzard of 2013.  I am sitting by my computer  reminiscing a week later  looking out at another snow storm blowing by.Let me back up. I am currently serving as General Federation of Women's Clubs-NH (GFWC)  President to 24 clubs and 740 women. These women are volunteers in their communities, truly hard working grassroots volunteers. I chose Women's Health Awareness as  my GFWC-NH President's Project, one of the  focus areas for GFWC-NH Women's Clubs.  Helping with a shot@Life will save babies and children and result in happy mommas. GFWC has chose to partner with a Shot@Life along with 13 other organizations and foundations . At our 2012 GFWC-International Convention  I heard about A Shot@Life and thought it was an amazing idea, to eradicate vaccine preventable diseases,worldwide . $20 will help give a lifetime of immunity to protect one  child from pneumonia, polio, diarrhea, and measles . I work 4 days a week helping to prevent illness in a pediatric office in Portsmouth for over 17 years.  I give vaccines to children and young adults nearly every day.  In NH we have a comprehensive vaccine program  to keep children healthy.  We are indeed lucky to have that choice in the USA.  Women in Nigeria have been known to walk 3 miles and stand in line for 3 + hours to get their child immunized. I am of an age  where I have seen the effects of Polio and the elimination of the wild disease in the USA.  There are 3 countries in the world where wild polio still exists, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. India has recently joined the list of countries who ,with recent efforts, is polio free.  Thanks  to Shot@life, Rotary International  and many other volunteers, it's gone. It can happen in our lifetime, in the remaining 3 countries. At the summit Dr Meg Fisher, of the American Academy of Pediatrics  gave an over view of the vaccines and showed slides of the illnesses and their devastating aftermath . She says, "Vaccines in the US are the public health success of the century, and we want to bring those same successes to other parts of the world." . Expanding access to vaccines  strengthens our ability to fight disease worldwide and keep our children/families healthy at home.  Polio is 99% eradicated, we have to remember vaccines do work and  as a nurse  in a pediatric office, the fact is, germs have no passports. For further information check out a shot@Life.org and GFWC.org.Carol WatersGFWC NH President2013 Shot@Life Champion