Polio just a plane ride away – action needed

Rotary District 9940 16 July 2007

Polio just a plane ride away – action needed to eliminate threat

A warning by polio campaigners that the disease that crippled or killed thousands of New Zealanders a generation ago is “just a plane ride away” has come horrifyingly true for Australia.

Australia’s first case of polio in 20 years arrived on a Bangkok - Melbourne flight, prompting Friday's national health alert. Health officials are urgently seeking all 249 passengers that shared the flight with an infected 22 year old Pakistani student, but so far have found only 120.

Now, when one out of four Kiwi kids has not completed their immunisation, New Zealand campaigners are calling for a final push to eliminate polio once and for all.

“We must keep up defences here at home – and strengthen the global elimination effort which is so close to success,” says Wellington-based Rotary leader, Pat Waite.

“Polio will continue to threaten people everywhere as long as it exists somewhere. A new outbreak of polio is only a plane ride away.”

While only four countries are still polio endemic - Nigeria, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan – cases are leaking out to otherwise polio-free Indonesia, Yemen, Somalia, Ethiopia, Chad, Namibia, Niger, Nepal and Bangladesh.

These are countries where Kiwis travel and work, and from where many new Kiwis come.

Huge strides have been made since the world community committed to global polio elimination. In 1988, polio was endemic in 125 countries, now it is only four. Polio cases have fallen by 99 per cent from the 350,000 cases in 1988.

But health experts estimate there may be 10 million new cases by 2050 if vaccinations in 2006-2008 are not done. Polio is one of the world’s most infectious diseases.

Pat Waite said: “The cost for donors is individually negligible but globally vital. At only $1 a dose, New Zealanders’ contribution of about ten cents a year per person over the past 20 years has prevented millions of polio victims.”

Last year Prime Minister Helen Clark was awarded the Polio Champion’s Award from Rotary International President (and Kiwi) Bill Boyd, to recognise the national effort.

Rotary is the largest private sector donor to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, a public/private partnership with the World Health Organisation, UNICEF, US Center for Disease Control, national health agencies and community health providers.

Rotary committed its global efforts to polio eradication in 1985. Rotarians and supporters have contributed more than $3.7 billion to the effort, and tens of thousands of members have personally placed that single life-saving drop upon a child’s tongue.

The name for the vaccination programme, Polio Plus, indicates that the vaccine is used to fight polio plus five other diseases that strike children: diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), tetanus, measles and tuberculosis.

ENDS

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