Polio Plus

 
While many District 5495 Rotarians will be enjoying the sun and sand, as well as the District conference in Puerto Panasco, Sonora Mexico during the first weekend in May, let us not forget that the first weekend in May also begins the Triple Crown racing season with the Kentucky Derby.
 
For those into horse racing, and mint julips, there is nothing more exciting than watching the horses round the final turn and begin the stretch run.
 
The competition for the Polio Champions Award has also entered the stretch run. The top seven clubs in the competition as of mid April are Sun City West, Sedona, Prescott Frontier, Gilbert, Sedona Red Rocks, Mesa West and E-Club of the Southwest.
 
Sadly only 39 of our District clubs have contributed to End Polio Now. There is still time for non-contributors to rectify that situation and also time for other clubs to up their contributions. The competition will run until mid to late June.
 
The winning club will be presented with the district polio champion trophy (left) to hold for the 2024-25 year.
 
 
We concentrate so much on the “two drops, but many Rotary members are not aware of the many “pluses” in Polio Plus.
 
A 2019 Rotary Magazine article by Vanessa Glavinskas lists some of the pluses: “It might be a hand-operated tricycle or access to water. It might be additional medical treatment, bed nets, or soap. A 2010 study estimates that vitamin A drops given to children at the same time as the polio vaccine have prevented 1.25 million deaths by decreasing susceptibility to infectious diseases.” (and that number now is likely well over 2 million!). Click below to read the article.

Another very valuable plus, that doesn’t get as much press as it should, is that many health workers give up to 50% of their time to immunization, surveillance, and outbreak response for other diseases. The infrastructure that detects new cases of polio and traces where and how they originated can also be used to find people with symptoms of yellow fever or COVID or Ebola. Early detection and contact tracing kept Ebola from spreading beyond 19 cases in Nigeria in 2014!
 
For more information or questions about Rotary's efforts to eradicate Polio, please contact us: 
 
Mike Crosby at epnczone27@zone2627.org 
Marny Eulberg at epnczone26@zone2627.org 
 
 
Click for article:
 
Competition for the right to hoist the End Polio Now Champions award at the end of this Rotary year continues.
 
So far this year 32 of our district clubs have contributed something to the Polio Eradication effort. For those who are not math majors, that would be about 1/2 of our clubs.

The top seven clubs for the first half of this Rotary year, in order are: Sedona, Sedona Red Rocks; Sun Lakes; Gilbert; Sun City West; E-Club of the Southwest; Peoria North. 

District Governor Kevin has indicated that the End Polio Now Champions award will not be presented until sometime in late June. So that gives all Rotarians five (5) plus months to make a PolioPlus contribution this Rotary year that will count toward the award. For the clubs that have not yet participated, it is NOT TOO LATE to get started.