Since becoming a member of the Rotary Club of Cochrane, I have become aware of an initiative that is at the forefront of Rotary International’s many programs to solve real problems and take action and implement many sustainable projects relating to literacy, peace, clean water and health.
Rotary has been working to eradicate polio for more than 30 years. Our goal of ridding the world of this disease is closer than ever. As a founding partner of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, Rotary has reduced polio cases by 99.9 per cent since its first project to vaccinate children in the Philippines in 1979. Rotary has helped immunize more than 2.5 billion children in 122 countries. So far, Rotary has contributed more than $1.8 billion toward eradicating the disease worldwide.
Today, polio remains endemic only in Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan. But it’s crucial to continue working to keep other countries polio-free. If all eradication efforts stopped today, within 10 years, polio could paralyze as many as 200,000 children each year.
Rotary has led the battle against polio since 1985, and kept the pressure on as worldwide cases plummeted from 350,000 per year to several hundred. When India went off the list of endemic countries in 2012, we took one more step toward eradicating a human disease from the earth for only the second time in history. Now, Rotary and its partners are “this close” to making that dream a reality.
However, the reason I chose to mention this for today’s publication of The Cochrane Eagle, Jan. 3, is because of an organization that was founded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on this date, in 1938, as a response to U.S. epidemics of polio, a condition that can leave people with permanent physical disabilities. Roosevelt was himself diagnosed with polio in 1921. As the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, to combat polio, the name "March of Dimes" was coined by Eddie Cantor.
After funding Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine, the organization expanded its focus to the prevention of birth defects and infant mortality.
The organization began in 1938 as the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. In 1976, it became known as the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation. In 2007, the formal name became the March of Dimes Foundation. So, the fight to eradicate this disease has been going on for a very long time. With the help of organizations like Rotary and others it would be wonderful to think of a day when polio is truly a thing of the past. After all, the average cost to fully protect a child against polio is just $3.
I look forward to the coming year and continuing to give my support to this and many of the wonderful causes that Rotary undertakes both locally, nationally and internationally.
If you would like to know more about the Rotary Club of Cochrane, why not join us for one of our meetings, any Tuesday, noon at the Cochrane Legion. You would be most welcome.
© 2019 Martin Parnell
www.martinparnell.com
