Tarkio Rotary club members are, from left to right, Bob Koch, Johnnie Davis, Gary Bussard, Anita Sutter, Don White, Gary Riley, Brad Mathers, Dean Sparks, Jayne Scott, and Glenn Scott. Members not shown are Carrie Livengood, Craig Livengood, Darryl Lowrey, Rachel Meyer, Benne Rogers, and Ed Salmond.
The Tarkio Rotary Club is joining with the World Health Organization and Rotary clubs around the world in the End Polio NOW campaign, proclaiming October 19-23 as World Polio Week, and October 24, 2020, as World Polio Day.
Polio is an infectious disease that cripples and kill. As recently as 1988, there were 350,000 cases of polio in 125 countries worldwide. That’s when Rotary International partnered with the World Health Organization to launch the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. Since that time, cases worldwide have been reduced by 99.9%. In August of this year, the continent of Africa was declared polio-free by the World Health Organization, leaving only Pakistan and Afghanistan as polio-endemic countries.
Over the years, Rotarians have helped to immunize more than 2.5 billion children in 122 countries and have contributed more than $1.9 billion toward vaccination efforts. Without these efforts, an estimated 17 million people would have contracted the disease.
Today, we’re very close to eradicating this disease from the face of the earth. However, according to the World Health Organization, as long as a single child remains infected, failure to complete the effort could result in as many as 200,000 new cases every year, within 10 years, all over the world.
For additional information, or to join in the fight against polio, contact the Tarkio Rotary Club at 660-736-4856.