World Polio Day: Making History- October 24, 2013
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On October 24th, 2013, World Polio Day, Rotary and Northwestern University’s Centre for Global Health hosted a live streamed global status update on the fight to end polio.
(Watch the 'World Polio Day: Making History' Livestream : http://ow.ly/pH1ED )
The program before a live audience at Northwestern’s John Hughes Auditorium in downtown Chicago, brought together a panel of experts to discuss the progress of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative -- the ambitious public-private partnership spearheaded by Rotary, the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with additional support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – and the many ways that members of the general public can help make history by supporting the final push needed to end polio forever.
Speakers included Dr. Bruce Aylward, WHO assistant director-general for polio, emergencies and country collaboration; Dr. Robert Murphy, director of the Center for Global Health at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine; and polio survivor and world-class Paralympian Dennis Ogbe, an ambassador for the United Nations Foundation’s Shot@Life campaign to promote childhood immunizations and Emmy Award-winning actress Archi Panjabi.
RI President Ron Burton kicked off the event by noting that Rotary began immunizing millions of children against polio in the 1970’s, first in the Philippines and then in other high-risk countries. “Polio rates in those countries plummeted,” Burton said. “As a result, in 1988, Rotary, the World Health Organization [WHO], UNICEF and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came together to launch the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. More recently, the initiative has benefitted from the tremendous support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation…It is so very important to finish the job.”
Dr. Robert Murphy emphasized that polio eradication “is completely doable… (It) will result in preventing billions of cases of paralysis and death, saving billions of dollars, assuring that no parent in the world will have to worry about this terrible disease ever again.”
Dennis Ogbe spoke compellingly about the challenges of living with the disease and the opportunity to protect people from it for all generations to come. “I have learned not to look at anything as impossible, and that includes, especially, the eradication of polio,” said Ogbe, who was born in Nigeria. “We have come a long way since the start. So let us finish strong and End Polio Now.”
Archi Panjabi spoke passionately about why she is so committed to her work as a Rotary ambassador for polio eradication. Inspired as an adult to learn more about polio, she was “amazed by the amount of work that Rotary has done,” in helping India be free of the disease since 2011, and joined a team of Rotary volunteers to immunize children there last year. “I will do whatever I can to support Rotary and its partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative….And if you do whatever you can, then together we can eradicate polio forever.”
Dr. Bruce Aylward emphasized that the global fight is winnable, noting that the number of cases in the endemic countries -Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan- is down 40 percent in 2013, compared to the same period in 2012. He also said that the type 2 wild poliovirus has been eradicated, and said November will mark one year without a case of type 3 virus anywhere in the world. Aylward also pinpointed challenges to the global initiative, including the outbreak in the Horn of Africa with 200 cases. Because of the strong response to the outbreak, however, the region “is again rapidly becoming polio free,” he said. If fully funded, the polio endgame is equipped to stop such outbreaks. “Today, all children everywhere can have a better future, not just against polio, but against every disease….if we as a global society get behind the vision of Rotary 25 years ago to reach every child with something as simple as polio vaccine.”
ENDGAME STRATEGY:
Every dollar Rotary raises (up to US$35 million/year) will be matched 2-to-1 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for polio eradication efforts through 2018. This support is in addition to the US$355 million that the foundation gave to Rotary in January 2012 after Rotary had succeeded in meeting the US$200 million challenge. Rotary actually reached this goal six months early with a total of US$228.7 million and was granted an additional US$50 million by the Gates Foundation.
WHY POLIO ERADICATION MATTERS:
We are closer than ever before to ending polio. We have a unique opportunity to end polio, making it only the second human disease to be wiped from the globe.
Investing in reaching the most vulnerable children with the polio vaccine leads the way to reaching them with other life-saving resources. The legacy of the polio eradication campaign is to provide a road map for tackling other diseases. A win against polio is a win for global health.