Supplied Photo/Peter Mueller

By Chris Brown

Local Rotary Clubs continue fight for polio-free world

Oct 24, 2020 | 1:00 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Medicine Hat’s Rotary Clubs are joining those around the world in Rotary International’s quest to eradicate polio around the world.

A proclamation declaring Oct. 24 to be World Polio Day in Medicine Hat was signed by Mayor Ted Clugston on Friday.

City clubs – Rotary Club, Medicine Hat Saamis Rotary and Medicine Hat Sunrise Rotary – have for years supported the efforts of Polio Plus which launched in 1985.

Medicine Hat Rotarians provided three iron lungs to the city hospital to help local victims who were some of the 2,000 who contracted the virus in Canada before it was declared polio-free

Since 1988 when the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was established cases have dropped by 99.9 per cent. Active cases today are limited to just two countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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If polio is not eradicated and the world polio-free for three years,, experts project that, within 10 years, as many as 200,000 children will be paralyzed annually.

To date, Rotary has contributed more than US$ 2.1 billion and countless volunteer hours to protect more than 2.5 billion children in 122 countries. Rotary is working to raise an additional $50 million per year to be leveraged for maximum impact by an additional $100 million annually from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Since March of this year, the infrastructure that make polio eradication efforts effective have been reallocated toward fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Donations to the PolioPlus program are key to eradicating polio and also confronting COVID-19.

For more information visit endpolio.org.