In February, local Rotarians Barbara and Bill Wilson flew to India to be part of National Immunization Day, when 2.3 million World Health Organization (WHO) workers, Rotarians and local volunteers joined together to administer polio drops to 176 million children.
The Wilsons’ assigned town was Ghasera in the Merat district, about two and a half hours from Delhi, on a dusty bus ride. It is a Muslim community, which posed its own challenges since many of the mothers did not feel free to walk among men to bring their children to be immunized. Older siblings often brought baby brothers and sisters in on their hips. Each immunized child had a pinkie finger marked with indelible ink, so it could be assured that no child was missed.
There were three or four volunteers per station, and since refrigeration was an issue, they had to be careful to ensure that when the coolers were running low, they called ahead for the next batch of vaccine to be delivered. Local townspeople kept count of the numbers at each station. The Wilsons gave two drops of oral polio vaccine to about 350 children at their stations. World Health Organization workers followed up in the following days by going house to house to ensure that every young child had been vaccinated.Background
Rotary pledged its effort to eradicate polio worldwide in 1985, when there were 125 polio endemic countries and 71 polio-free countries. Since that time two billion children have been vaccinated in a global effort to eradicate the crippling and fatal disease. Internationally, Rotarians have contributed more than one billion dollars and participated in National Immunization Days around the globe.
India was one of the last countries to report a case of polio. It has been two years since that Indian case in West Bengal was documented. Since the polio virus can live in the ground or sewage for up to just three years, the World Health Organization (WHO) is about to declare India “polio free.” The Indian government continued its strategic approach to ensuring that all children under the age of five years old continue to be vaccinated.
The Wilsons report that the organizational structure on National Immunization Day in India resembled a military campaign. Each area of the country was divided into sectors and each sector determined the number of personnel, vaccines, doctors, volunteers and immunization stations that each community needed. Stations were set up around the community and the day was highly publicized by large posters, broadcasts, drummers and a parade through town on the day of the event. Children and parents joined the parade in a pied-piper-like approach as volunteers pointed out the staging areas around the community.
Today, only Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria are polio endemic countries where new cases continue to be documented. This is almost a polio free world, but polio knows no boundaries. Rotary International, through the efforts of its local clubs such as those in Ajijic and Jocotopec, will not stop until the job is done.