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Ending polio: Rotary's promise to children

(Original publication: December 14, 2005)

Recently, health officials were surprised to discover that five children in Minnesota were infected by the polio virus. These cases, which received international attention including extensive coverage in the New York Times, puzzled the medical community, as polio has not been seen in this country for 26 years. Though medical experts are still investigating exactly how these children were infected, they are certain that it must have come from overseas.

That means poliomyelitis — a disease long forgotten in the developed world but still felt by those living in some Asian and African nations — is just a plane ride away from coming in contact with children in the United States. This discovery further proves that no child is safe from polio, even today, until it is completely eradicated worldwide.

In the United States, due to its ready access to vaccines and high immunization rates, polio poses little threat to children. However, for those who fall through the cracks, little can be done. Once a child has polio, there is no cure. The only protection is prevention, and for as little as 60 cents' worth of vaccine, a child can be protected against this crippling disease for life.

Rotary members worldwide are committed to immunizing every child and have made eradicating polio their top priority since 1985. Rotary and its partners at the World Health Organization, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and UNICEF have immunized more than 2 billion children in 122 countries.

Rotary, now with 1.2 million members in nearly 170 countries, is the largest private-sector supporter of polio eradication, having raised more than $600 million. Never before have individual volunteers and the influence of the private sector played such a core role in a global public-health effort.

During the holidays, hundreds of Rotary members will travel, at their own expense, to polio-endemic countries. Joining local health workers, religious leaders, teachers and parents, Rotary members hope to reach millions of children under the age of 5 during multinational polio immunization campaigns. They will work from dusk to dawn and go from house to house in the most remote villages to ensure that every child is immunized.

Great progress has been made. In 1988, there were 1,000 reported polio cases per day. During the past two decades, polio cases worldwide have been slashed by 99 percent. Epidemiologists predict that polio can be stopped in all countries within a short time.

Yet despite this progress, governments, health workers and volunteers must overcome the many obstacles of war, poverty and misinformation in order to reach every child in all corners of the world.

Until polio is truly gone, children worldwide will be at risk from this cruel disease that once swept waves of panic through cities in the United States every summer in the 1940s and 1950s. For the sake of all the world's children, we must join together to fulfill the promise of a polio-free world and end the needless suffering from polio for all time.