Polio Tea

The club recently held a free tea and scones afternoon to promote the Global Rotary mission to eradicate polio from the planet for good. About 70 people attended, and donations were £400. What this means is that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will treble the amount to £1,200 which means vaccinations for up to 6,000 children.

Started by Rotary over four decades ago, we are on the final charge. From a global 350,000 cases a year in 1985, down to a handful today, in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We also have the issue of Gaza and possible other areas of war.

No cases were seen in Gaza for 25 years until a few weeks ago, so we had to vaccinate the children of Gaza as soon as possible. Thanks to WHO (the World Health Organisation) and the UN access was gained through Israel guaranteeing safe passage to facilitate vaccinations in specific regions of Gaza which would not be attacked. This changed to other areas allowing 640,000 children to be vaccinated in a few days.

Good news also re Afghanistan as agreement was reached this week to allow vaccinations to recommence again after three years of bans. The work starts again in November. That allows access to 3,000,000 children.

After Rotary set the wheels in motion we have been joined over the years by WHO, CDC, UNICEF, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Gavi.