Wednesday, October 24, 2012

World Polio Day



October 24 is a day that will come and go without notice to most people in the world. You will not see thousands of people wearing pink. You will not see the ribbons on peoples clothing. You will not see hundreds of races dedicated to raising money or awareness. But October 24 is a very special day. This day is World Polio Day.


What is polio? World Polio Day describes the virus as:

“Poliomyelitis (polio) is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus. It invades the nervous system, and can cause total paralysis in a matter of hours. It can strike at any age, but affects mainly children under three (over 50% of all cases). The virus enters the body through the mouth and multiplies in the intestine. Initial symptoms are fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, stiffness in the neck and pain in the limbs. One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis (usually in the legs). Amongst those paralyzed, 5%-10% die when their breathing muscles become immobilized.

Many people still do not realize the US President Franklin D. Roosevelt was a polio victim who required a wheelchair to be mobile. Few pictures of him with his wheelchair exist and his illness was hidden from the public eye.


Most of us are too young to remember the horrible and crimpling polio virus. Most of us are even more luck to live in countries where polio has already been eradicated. We would not be this lucky if it was not for a world wide group called Rotary International (RI).


Rotary International is a world wide charitable organization with over 1.2 million members and 34,000 clubs. “Rotary club members are volunteers who work locally, regionally, and internationally to combat hunger, improve health and sanitation, provide education and job training, promote peace, and eradicate polio under the motto Service Above Self.”


Rotary International does thousands of charitable services but their main goal is the worldwide eradication of the Polio virus and so far they are doing a great job. There program to eradicate polio is called “Polio Plus.”



After 25 years of hard work, Rotary and its partners are on the brink of eradicating this tenacious disease. Its a great effort and contribution by the Rotarians worldwide to initiate the movement of global Polio eradication programme.

As a Rotaractor, I am proud to be a part of Rotary International Family. This is absolutely amazing and we must not drop the ball on this mission.








1 comment:

  1. Thank you Rotary. we are very close in ending polio. rejoice!
    It is indeed satisfying that every one is serious on playing the end game. Rotary's advocacy has brought us so close.
    "End polio and feed the world"

    ReplyDelete