In 1985, Rotary International launched an effort to eradicate polio. Three years later, when the project became a global initiative, the disease was paralyzing more than 1,000 children every single day.
Thanks to the work of more than 20 million volunteers, more than 2.5 billion children have been immunized, and the wild poliovirus now circulates in only two countries.
Through October of 2020, Rotary International had contributed more than $2.1 billion to the campaign, and it has committed to raising an additional $50 million every year.
I’ve been a member of Rotary clubs in four cities over the course of the last 25 years, and like most Rotarians, I’m proud of what the organization has accomplished. The global incidence of polio has dropped by 99 percent.
And yet, the fight to protect our children from this disease continues, even in the United States.
Right here in Indiana, fewer than six in 10 children under the age of 3 have gotten the usual vaccinations aimed at preventing such diseases as polio, measles, hepatitis and chickenpox.
According to a recent report from Indiana Capital Chronicle, most Hoosier counties record vaccination rates of between 50 percent and 71 percent. Northern Indiana’s LaGrange County reports the lowest rate, with only 35 percent of kids fully vaccinated. Warrick County, in the southwestern part of the state, reports a rate of 77 percent, the highest in Indiana.
Public health organizations are responding by staging mobile vaccine clinics across the state. They’re reminding parents that vaccines play a crucial role in keeping our children safe.
Health experts blame much of the problem on the pandemic. Parents couldn’t get their children
to the routine checkups where these shots are normally handed out. Some parents lost their jobs and thus didn’t have health insurance.
And some avoided the vaccines for religious or even political reasons.
Perhaps we’ve become complacent. After all, when was the last time you saw anyone with polio? Have you ever seen it?
Sadly, some folks in New York recently have.
This summer, a young man who is part of an ultra-orthodox Jewish community was hospitalized after developing a fever, neck stiffness and weakness in his legs.
Public health experts believe the virus that infected this young man had been circulating for up to a year. Genetically similar versions were detected in Israel in March and in Britain in June.
Medical experts say the young man likely contracted the virus at a large gathering. They say his case could be the tip of an iceberg.
About three out of every four people infected with the virus might not even know they have it. They show no symptoms.
Others might develop a sore throat or a headache, symptoms that could easily be overlooked or confused with some other illness.
Only about one in 200 polio victims suffers paralysis. A few of those cases are fatal because the virus moves to the lungs and the patient can’t breathe.
As they work to boost vaccination numbers, public health experts are calling on an older generation, people who remember children wearing braces to help them walk, people who remember the victims who could breathe only with the help of an iron lung.
And they offer a warning: The only way to protect yourself against the ravages of polio is to get the shot. Once you have the disease, there is no cure.
Before vaccines came along in the 1950s and 1960s, polio was one of the most feared diseases in the world, paralyzing hundreds of thousands of children every year.
Parents in those days had seen what the virus could do, and they lined up to get their children the protection they needed, some without even knowing the shots would actually work.
Today, a full round of childhood polio vaccinations is at least 99 percent effective. Polio is extremely rare.
Let’s hope it stays that way.
Kelly Hawes
CNHI News Indiana
