Rotary officials ask public to join in fight to eradicate polio

Rotary International needs your help to eradicate polio once and for all.

The service organization is making a push for people in communities worldwide to donate to its foundation to eradicate the disease in Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Nigeria.

William R. Patchett, Rotary Zone 24 East co-coordinator for Polio Education, spoke of that plan Wednesday afternoon during the Watertown Rotary annual foundation luncheon at the Best Western Carriage House Inn, 300 Washington St .

The international organization has already collected half of the matching funds, and now plans to involve the community at large in its effort.

Money will help fund Rotary's Polio Plus program, which helps Rotary fund operational costs, such as transportation, social mobilization, vaccine delivery and training of health workers and support surveillance activities. UNICEF, one of the organization's partnering agencies, actually purchases the vaccines.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, polio is caused by a virus which often spreads through person-to-person contact. Although it may seem easy for people with clean, safe drinking water to wash their hands after sneezing or going to the bathroom, it's not that simple in some of the countries were polio remains.

"The kids in India play in the same water in which cows defecate and they defecate," said Dr. Robert Scott, chairman of Rotary International's Polio Plus Committee. "The disease gets into the nervous system and that's how kids get paralyzed."

That is why, Dr. Scott said, it is important to raise funds to help people in those countries get vaccinations. Since the Polio Plus program's inception in the mid 1980s, 2.5 billion children have been vaccinated.

Progress that has been made over the past two decades with Rotary's program is just one step in the right direction, Dr. Scott said.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we will end polio now," he said during his talk at the Watertown Rotary luncheon.

People who would like to contribute to the Rorary effort can write a check payable to Rotary Foundation and include "Polio Plus" in the memo line before sending it to Watertown Noon Rotary, 200 Washington St., Room 409, Watertown, NY 13601.

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Rotary International: www.rotary.org