Northallerton Rotarians help make history in battle against polio

TWO Northallerton Rotarians have returned from India where they took part in a mass immunization campaign to eradicate polio. 

It is estimated that 174 million children under five across India received the vaccine during the campaign.

Janet Crampton and Di Pownall, members of the Rotary Club of Northallerton Mowbray, travelled to Amritsar in the Punjab to take part in Rotary International’s End Polio Now campaign which aims to see the complete eradication of polio across the world within the next decade.

They helped dispense the oral vaccine to around 700 children in the city and the outlying villages as part of a group of six Rotarians from the UK who volunteered to take part in India’s National Immunisation Programme.

 Di has been the Rotary Club’s Foundation officer for many years, overseeing fundraising efforts for the polio campaign. She said it was wonderful to see the funds raised in the UK put to use on the ground.

 She said they had worked with the local Indian Rotary Clubs in establishing pop-up clinics in communities to which infants were brought to receive the vaccine, in the form of drops on the tongue, and house-to-house visits were made to those who can’t or, for whatever reason, could not get to the booths. 

 Janet said she was inspired to take part at Rotary International Convention in Toronto two years ago when she heard the CEO of the World Health Organisation describe how close the world was to the complete eradication of polio.

She said: “The world is 99.9% free of polio. We are within touching distance of success. It was quite inspirational to be a small part of this massive effort to eradicate this terrible disease for good.”

 She added: “We are grateful to have been given the chance to be proactive and do something which goes a little way to touch the future of a world free of polio".

 In recent years the number of cases of polio had been only two dozen or so and always in countries that were inaccessible because of politics, conflict or geography, most notably Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to a lesser extent Nigeria.

 Over a 30-year period millions of volunteers have administered oral vaccines to more than three billion children around the world.

 India has been clear of polio for six years but because of its border with Pakistan it still vulnerable, largely due to inadequate health systems, poor hygiene and sanitation.