Polio Plus

Mia Farrow is a polio survivor who contracted the disease at age 9. Listen to her inspirational video clip on Rotary and the eradication of polio Click here to see Mia's inspiring talk.

Rotary, partners respond to polio outbreak in Africa

A recent wild poliovirus outbreak in southern Sudan has spread into parts of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda.

In response, Rotary is providing a total of US$500,000 in emergency grants to UNICEF and the World Health Organization for immediate immunization efforts in the Horn of Africa.

In January, The Rotary Foundation Trustees approved $2.2 million in PolioPlus grants to support immunization activities there.

The outbreak requires urgent action by governments and partner agencies to make the region polio-free, health officials say. The emergency response is aimed at reducing the threat of the virus spreading to other polio-free countries, a process called importation. The emergency grants will support immunization activities in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda through May. Immunization rounds are also continuing in southern Sudan in an effort to halt the source of the outbreak.

"Polio importations highlight our global vulnerability to infectious disease, particularly where routine immunization is low and vulnerable children are missed," said Carol Pandak, manager of PolioPlus.

The government of southern Sudan has launched a polio eradication action plan, including the formation of an Inter-Ministerial Coordination Committee, which is placing full responsibility and accountability for the outbreak response on state and district governments. President Salva Kiir Mayardit has issued a directive to all 10 state governors, requesting that they secure the support of nongovernmental organizations and traditional and religious leaders for the effort.

Leadership commended

Dr. Hussein Gezairy, director of WHO's Eastern Mediterranean region, commended the government of southern Sudan "for putting in place these important new measures to address this dangerous spread of disease. It is precisely this leadership which will help ensure the outbreak is rapidly stopped and will prevent further international spread. No child in southern Sudan need ever again know the pain of life-long polio paralysis." 

The persistent outbreak in southern Sudan threatens the progress made by polio-free countries in eliminating the wild virus and preventing importations. Although outbreaks sometimes occur during eradication efforts, they do not lessen the feasibility of the eradication initiative. Outbreaks do, however, highlight the critical need to stop polio transmission in the remaining polio-endemic countries, such as Nigeria and India, which have exported the poliovirus to other nations in recent years, health officials say. The only other endemic countries are Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Large-scale outbreak response is now underway across the Horn of Africa, including Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and northern Sudan. An immunization campaign was held in southern Sudan 27-29 April, targeting more than 2.9 million children under age five. The next campaign is scheduled for 26-28 May.

"Experience shows that where polio transmission has been stopped before, it can be stopped again," said Pandak. "A fast, large-scale, and high-quality immunization response and strong surveillance are absolutely critical to prevent the virus taking hold in the longer term."

Itzhak Perlman joins New York Philharmonic in Concert to End Polio

Rotary International is teaming up with violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman and the world-renowned New York Philharmonic to present the Concert to End Polio, a benefit performance supporting the global effort to eradicate this disabling, sometimes fatal, childhood disease.

The concert will be held on 2 December at 7:30 p.m. in Avery Fisher Hall at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. Buy tickets.

The polio eradication effort resonates strongly with Perlman, who contracted the disease at age four and overcame serious physical challenges to become one of the world's most celebrated musicians. In this special one-night-only performance, his first with the New York Philharmonic in four years, Perlman will help Rotary in its effort to raise $200 million to match $355 million in challenge grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

"We are honored that an artist of Mr. Perlman's stature and a cultural institution as revered as the New York Philharmonic are supporting Rotary in our effort to achieve a polio-free world," says RI President John Kenny. "Their participation demonstrates the importance of this unprecedented global health initiative. It will be our lasting gift to the world's children."

"The fact that polio is still around is ridiculous," says Perlman, winner of 15 Grammy Awards, plus a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008. "There is absolutely no excuse for anyone to get polio. This is an issue that has to be dealt with immediately."

Tickets to the concert are priced between $70 and $200. A private reception with Perlman will follow the concert. A premium concert seat and admission to the reception will be offered at a package price of $500. Music program information will be announced at a later date.

 

 

Rotarians go door to door to immunize children in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, one of the last remaining reservoirs of polio in India. Rotary Images/Alyce Henson

Although the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) has faced sobering challenges in the past year, officials say it is moving forward in key political, technical, financial, and operational areas.

Stepped-up efforts to end the disease in the four endemic countries -- Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan -- are paying off, they say.

"Rotary International has played an extraordinarily special role [in the GPEI], not just as one of the initiators but in bringing financial resources, political advocacy, and volunteerism on the ground to getting the job done," said Dr. Bruce Aylward, director of the GPEI at the World Health Organization, speaking to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., in June.

Aylward said that all levels of government in the four countries are committing unprecedented support for the polio eradication effort by monitoring the performance of immunization activities and holding local authorities accountable for the results.

According to WHO, the incidence of polio in India in 2009 has dropped by 28 percent to 284 cases as of 8 September, compared with 397 cases over the same period a year ago. Monthly immunization campaigns in the highest-risk areas have reduced wild poliovirus type 1 -- the more dangerous of the two remaining strains -- to record lows. Type 1 causes paralysis in about 1 out of every 200 children infected, versus 1 out of every 1,000 children with type 3.

In Nigeria, the incidence of polio has decreased by 41 percent to 379 cases, from 646 cases a year ago. By early 2009, the proportion of unimmunized children in the highest-risk states had fallen below 10 percent for the first time.

Unrest along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border has resulted in a slight increase in the number of cases in both countries in the past year. Between large-scale immunization campaigns, however, teams have exploited lulls in the conflict to enter normally inaccessible areas and give children an additional dose of vaccine. In Afghanistan, the wild poliovirus is endemic only in the south, and about 80 percent of children live in polio-free areas.

Rotarians in Pakistan have encouraged the national government to give strong support to ending polio. In early 2009, Pakistan launched the Prime Minister's Action Plan for Polio Eradication. On behalf of Rotary International in August, International PolioPlus Committee Chair Robert S. Scott recognized Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, with a Polio Eradication Champion Award for his outstanding support for a polio-free world.

A new vaccine will be introduced in India as early as November to help stop the transmission of the type 1 and type 3 wild polioviruses. (Type 2 has been eradicated globally except in Nigeria.) This bivalent vaccine, health officials believe, will multiply the gains made during the past year toward eradicating polio. Intended to complement, not replace, monovalent and trivalent vaccines already in use, the bivalent vaccine will also be considered for Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan.

Worldwide, the number of polio cases has dropped from more than 350,000 in 1988, when the GPEI began, to 1,651 in 2008.

"This is a great improvement from the worst days of polio epidemics," said Rotary Foundation Trustee Chair Glenn E. Estess Sr. "But it is not good enough, and it will not be good enough until the number is zero. We cannot pause or slacken our efforts."

Global health experts are calling the push to end polio "the final inch," in light of the remaining 1 percent of cases that are the most difficult and expensive to prevent. Rotary's US$200 Million Challenge, which ends 30 June 2012, is seen as crucial to the initiative's success.

"This is an absolutely devastating disease that affects the poorest, most marginalized communities in the world," Aylward said. "We have the tools to eliminate it forever."