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PHOTO: Ellie Andrews, a Bethel Rotary Club member, collects donations to kick-off the club’s Christmas for Children campaign. (Submitted photo)
BETHEL — On the cusp of World Polio Day Oct. 24, the Bethel Rotary’s Zoom meeting featured Ann Lee Hussey, a Rotarian and polio survivor.
The club also kicked off its Christmas for Children campaign, which raises money for children and families in School Administrative District 44. Rotarians will be
Although it circulates in only a few countries, polio is highly infectious and spreads rapidly. Afflicting mainly children, the disease is transmitted via contaminated water and food supplies. Five to 10 percent of cases are fatal. As long as polio threatens even one child anywhere in the world, children everywhere are at risk. Only the global eradication of polio will ensure that no child ever again suffers its devastating effects.
By the end of the 1980s, more than 350,000 children were paralyzed by polio every year. Today, Rotary and its partners have reduced the incidence of polio by 99.9 percent. However, until we see the last of the poliovirus, eradication efforts need additional funding to immunize more than 400 million children against polio every year; improve disease surveillance systems to detect any poliovirus in a person or the environment; and hire more than 150,000 health workers to go door to door to find every child
To date, 122 countries have benefited from PolioPlus grants. Since 1988, the number of polio endemic countries declined from more than 125 to two — Afghanistan and Pakistan. Through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, every $1 Rotary commits to polio eradication is matched 2-to-1 (up to $50 million per year).
On average, a child can be fully protected against polio for three dollars. Since 1998, Vitamin A supplements have been added to polio immunization activities, helping to avert an estimated 1.5 million childhood deaths. Eradicating polio will generate $14 billion in expected cumulative cost savings by 2050. The global effort to eradicate polio has already saved more than $27 billion in health costs since 1988.
“Rotary was the first organization to push for a polio-free world, and so many Rotarians have been part of fundraising, vaccination and advocacy efforts. The final steps to a polio-free world are the hardest — and we’ll need the help of every Rotarian, and donations from all sources, to get there. But I’m confident that we will end polio together,” noted Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
For information on both the polio and Christmas for Children programs, visit bethelrotary.org.
