Let's stamp out the flame
“Today, the flame of polio is near extinction — but sparks in three countries threaten to ignite a global blaze. Now is the moment to act.”
This was UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s call this week, in an op-ed that featured in newspapers across Africa. The Secretary-General’s message comes at a critical juncture in the battle against polio – to succeed against polio, we must act now.
In the past three decades, we have seen remarkable progress towards the end of polio. In 1988 when the Global Polio Eradication Initiative – the global partnership to eradicate polio – was founded, it was estimated that the world faced more than 350,000 cases of polio a year. In 2011, only 650 cases were reported. Case numbers are down even further this year, at nearly a third of what they were at this time last year (53 vs 145). In 1988, more than 125 countries had never ceased transmission of polio; there are now only three.
Incredible progress – yet this could all come undone.
(more...)The challenge of the last percent: campaigning for the end of polio | Hugh Evans
Hugh Evans' address to the Rotary International Convention in Bangkok, Thailand on 7 May 2012 is reproduced below.
It’s a great honour to be here today at the Rotary International Convention. I’ve long admired Rotary – for the work you do, and the way you do it. 1.2 million members in over 200 countries, all galvanised around the idea of ‘Service Above Self’.
What impact that motto has - a conviction that individuals, working together, can change the world.
My first encounter with Rotary was in 1997, when at the age of 14 I found myself preparing to head off to the Philippines to spend time in the slums of Manila.
The trip was organised by World Vision. I’d been able to raise significant funds through the 40 Hour Famine and was rewarded with the chance to see their work on the front line.
Unable to afford the journey on the savings from my paper-round, I turned to my local Rotary Club in North Balwyn for help. There I found not only the financial assistance I needed, but also the support and encouragement of an inspiring group of people who saw the value in a young person widening their worldview. I’m not sure I’d be standing here today if they hadn’t stepped in.
In Manila, I was taken to Smokey Mountain – a makeshift community built on and around a massive rubbish dump; where the very infrastructure of this community revolved around scavenging.The children literally ran after the garbage trucks to find pieces of food and things that they could recycle.
It was about as far from the comfort of my suburban Australian life as you could get.
(more...)The story of my brother Frankie: a reminder that vaccines work | Janice Nichols
In April 1954, I became one of 1,829,916 children in the US, Canada, and Finland who participated in the Salk Vaccine Trial. They called us “Polio Pioneers.” We were told that our participation was necessary to protect present and future children and young adults from the ravages of polio, a cruel killer and crippler that my family knew all too well. The vaccine was licensed in the U.S. and elsewhere in 1955.
My parents were eager to allow my participation in the vaccine trial. You see in fall 1953, a polio epidemic had struck my suburb of DeWitt, New York USA. In the end, three children died including my twin brother, Frankie. I was temporarily paralyzed but my parents were told that I would eventually recover. Because polio has three viral types and I only had natural immunity to one of the three types, my pediatrician advised my parents that a vaccine was the only way to protect me. My parents were not about to take any chances with my life. Moreover, they were eager to spare other families the terrible loss we had endured.
Fast forward to 2012:
In 1952, the year before polio claimed the life of my twin, there were 600,000 cases of polio worldwide. The relentless work of over 20 million people involved in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative has rendered eradication in sight. Yet, funding gaps and anti-vaccine rhetoric threaten the health and welfare of the young all over the world.
The public needs to appreciate the consequences of failure to eradicate this dread disease: The World Health Organization predicts that if polio is not eradicated within the near future, we will have lost our best chance to rid the world of a virus that can render someone paralyzed or dead within a matter of hours, and, by mid-century, we could have more than 10 million children paralyzed by a disease that can be completely prevented by vaccine.
In 1953, Frankie and I were at the mercy of the polio virus—our epidemic occurred before the vaccine was tested and licensed. Although I miss my twin every day, I pray that his death is a reminder to all people that failure to heed the warning of the medical and public health communities has dire consequences.
The week before polio struck our first grade classroom, my twin and I were busy anticipating “Halloween Trick or Treat’ activities with our neighborhood friends. Life was simple and full of wonder. Yet on the day after Halloween, Frankie died (a mere sixty-one hours after admission to the hospital). He was a beautiful, active little boy who died in an iron lung because he was unable to breathe or swallow on his own.
Take a good, long look at the picture of my twin. Don’t let other children suffer his plight… Yes, vaccines work!
The Birth of Polio Eradication: The Salk Vaccine Turns 57 | David Oshinsky
Injecting life into our future
The anniversary of the Salk polio vaccine
Celebrating polio gains in India | Ramesh Ferris
Every day of my life, I’m reminded of the permanent effects of polio.Stricken with polio at the age of six months in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India, I underwent a series of surgeries and physical rehabilitation after my adoption into a Canadian family, learning to walk on crutches by age four. Polio affected my lungs, and I contracted pneumonia nine times before my 11th birthday.
So to know that the country of my birth – and the very place I contracted the poliovirus 32 years ago – is now off the polio-endemic list has such poignant meaning for me.
(more...)
People powered movement: Rotary & polio eradication
This weekend one of Australia’s most iconic buildings will be lit up in support of polio eradication efforts.
Why? To mark the 107th birthday of one of Australia’s biggest community service organisations, and the group that kick started the global movement to eradicate polio.
Not many people know that the global movement to eradicate polio was begun by Rotary International.
The first seeds of the idea to eradicate polio were planted in Rotarian Sir Clem Renouf’s mind in 1979. Flying to Evanston, he picked up a Reader's Digest magazine, and read that for about the same money that had been spent on two Australian warships, the World Health Organization had eradicated smallpox. He began to wonder....
(more...)A milestone innings in my lifetime | B.S. Chandrasekhar
On a personal note, I was struck by polio at the age of five, but through an international cricket career lasting over a decade and a half, that never really worried me.
There were all kinds of theories in my playing days. That I was a contortionist who could rotate his wrist 360 degrees. That my fingers gripped the ball differently thanks to an attack of polio, and therefore confused batsmen. I was usually amused, but occasionally irritated. The truth was more mundane and more painful.
When I came down with a fever in 1951 or so, I could not offer a handshake since I could not raise my right arm. I think I was too young to be particularly worried, but my parents rushed me to the local hospital. I tried to shake the doctor’s hand as I had been taught to, but just could not do it. The doctor looked worried. So did my parents. They went into a huddle. I left the hospital with my right arm in plaster. Nobody told me what was wrong.
(more...)Campaign Impact
| Between July and November 2011, the Global Poverty Project partnered with Rotary International, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, UNICEF, and the World Health Organization to run The End of Polio campaign. Building on the achievements of partners - like Rotary International, who have raised over $1 billion in the past 25 years towards polio eradication efforts - The End of Polio used the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth, Australia, as an opportunity to celebrate progress so far, and focus on the need to work together to ensure that the world is rid of polio forever. Thank-you to everyone who was involved, and we look forward to continuing to work alongside you in 2012. Download and read the Campaign Impact Report to see what we did, and what happened as a result. |
Diane van Geyzel, Australia: As a past sufferer of polio, I would like to send my heartfelt thanks for supporting "The End of Polio". We never want to see this awful disease back and by supporting the immunization of all children in all countries, this will be enabled.
Paula Bell, United States: With the efforts of millions of Rotarians and other ordinary people, along with these remarkable business and world leaders, a once seemingly impossible dream will soon be brought to the people of the world. Just imagine what else can be accomplished by people who care about the fate of the poorest of the poor.
Rebecca Samuel, United Kingdom: It is easy to ask for help and easy to forget to say thank you when that help comes. So thank you, a big big thank you.
Local leadership: a game changer?
October’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) heralded important progress in the fight against polio, for a number of reasons: one of which has managed to fly below the radar.
Your thank you messages
Earlier this month, to celebrate the announcement of an additional $118 million of funding for global polio eradication efforts at CHOGM, we invited supporters to join us in sending thank you messages to those who committed to support eradication efforts.
This week I am in Canberra to pass on more than 1,600 messages thanking governments for showing leadership on polio eradication. Today their representatives shared with me their appreciation for the many heartfelt messages of thanks and support, and reaffirmed their commitment to realise the end of polio.
One Step Closer
On the 29th October 2011 in response to the Global Poverty Project's The End of Polio campaign, the Australian Government committed $50 million to polio eradication efforts - helping to close the funding gap currently limiting global vaccination work.
To celebrate this important announcement, organisation co-founders Hugh Evans and Simon Moss sent this message to campaign supporters - sharing the grassroots beginnings of a campaign that is helping realise the end of the second human disease in history.
The eradication of polio, past and present | John H Smith
I was born in June 1946 to Cecil and Joan Smith who lived at "Peach Hill Farm", Ballaying via Wagin, situated on the Behn Ord Road fifteen miles east of the Great Southern railway line, not far from Dumbleyung Lake.
The gift of polio eradication
I contracted polio at the age of 6 months when I was living in Southern India.
Bliss n Eso: The B Side
Next Friday Aussie hip-hop sensations Bliss n Es will feature alongside nine-time Grammy award winner John Legend at The End of Polio Concert. Check out what they have to say about 'The B Side' of the fight to end extreme poverty.
(more...)“We're still here”
Although polio has been reduced by 99% and the disease is now eradicated from the developed world, the legacy of the last century's polio epidemics remains, with up to 70% of polio survivors now experiencing polio’s late effects.
(more...)Hugh Jackman: “Ice cream kills kids”
“Ice cream kills kids.”
That’s what Hugh Jackman says in this new clip we’ve just released ahead of The End of Polio Concert on October 28th.
Running on Empty | Julie Deferville
My early experience of polio
I contracted polio in January 1951 in Singapore aged just seven months. Along with my older brother, we went down with the virus on the same day. It is supposed that the doctor who had made a house visit a short while earlier to inoculate us with regular childhood vaccinations infected us in the process - he'd apparently come straight from a polio sufferer.
(more...)The Moment of a Lifetime | Margaret Redden
This is it.
Years of training, countless hours in the gym, sacrifices made, pain, sweat, tears, and battle wounds all on the line. (more...)
On the frontline: Polio Plus
11 years ago, when my home region of the Western Pacific was certified as polio-free, I was in India supporting Rotary International to distribute polio vaccines to children who were still very much at risk from contracting this debilitating disease.
(more...)
