In conjunction with Rotary International’s 1985 pledge to support the worldwide eradication of polio, the Chapala Sunrise Rotary Club is planning a Mothers March to “End Polio Now” on Friday, October 24, 10 a.m., starting from the Chapala malecon fountain to a rally at the Chapala plaza.
To end the day of activities designed to focus local attention on eradicating the disease, the local group will host an “End Polio Now” dinner/dance at the Villa Montecarlo in Chapala, beginning at 5 p.m.. Tickets cost 300 pesos and are available from any Sunrise Rotary member, at Diane Pearl Colecciones in Ajijic, or on the Chapala Sunrise Rotary website: www.chapalarotary.org.
When the international group made its 1985 pledge to eradicate polio, 71 countries were polio free and there were still 125 polio endemic countries. Since then two billion children have been vaccinated in a global effort to eradicate the disease, Rotarians alone have contributed over one billion dollars toward that goal.
In 2012, Chapala Sunrise Rotarians Barbara and Bill Wilson flew to India for National Polio Immunization Day to be part of this grand effort. More than 2.3 million volunteers, a combination of WHO workers, Rotarians and local volunteers, immunized 176 million children on that day.
The Wilsons worked in Ghasera in the Merat district, a 2.5-hour dusty bus ride from Delhi. Many of the Muslim mothers of the community did not feel free to walk among men to bring their children to be immunized so older siblings brought babies on their hips. The local couple gave two drops of oral polio vaccine (OPV) to about 350 children during the day.
“We are almost a polio free world,” says Barbara Wilson, “but polio knows no boundaries. Rotary International, through the efforts the Chapala Sunrise and other local clubs, will not stop until the job is done.”
Today Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria are the only polio endemic countries with new cases continuing to be documented.