The Ada Rotary is taking part in World Polio Day on October 24 and will have a banner on display near the Ada Train Depot Park.
The local service club is highly active in the Ada community, participating in public events, educating members about community needs and issues at weekly meetings and providing scholarships for local students. The organization shares a cause with the 62 clubs in Rotary District 6600 and over 3,000 members in Northern Ohio, as well as with the 46,000 club across the world: ending polio.
Polio, or poliomyelitis, is a paralyzing and potentially deadly infectious disease that most commonly affects children under the age of 5. The virus spreads from person to person, typically through contaminated water. It can attack the nervous system.
Rotary has been working to eradicate polio for more than 35 years. Rotary is partnered with the Global Polio Eradication Initiative and together they have reduced polio cases by 99.9% since their first project to vaccinate children in the Philippines in 1979. At the end of the 1980s, more than 350,000 children were paralyzed by polio every year. Today, polio remains endemic only in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But it's crucial to continue working to keep other countries polio-free. If all eradication efforts stopped today, within 10 years, polio could paralyze as many as 200,000 children each year.
Rotary members have contributed more than $2.1 billion and countless volunteer hours to protect nearly 3 billion children in 122 countries from this paralyzing disease. Rotary's advocacy efforts have played a role in decisions by governments to contribute more than $10 billion to the effort.
Rotary's 5 Reasons Why We Must Eradicate Polio
1. To Improve Lives
Today 19 Million people who would otherwise be paralyzed by polio are walking and 1.5 million people who would otherwise have died are alive
2. To Invest in the Future
If all eradication efforts stopped today, within 10 years, polio could paralyze as many as 200,000 children each year. A polio-free world will be a healthier world for children everywhere
3. To Improve Child Health
Polio surveillance networks and vaccination campaigns also monitor children for other health problems like vitamin deficiency and measles, so we can address them sooner
4. To Lower Health Care Costs
The global effort to eradicate polio has already saved more than $27 billion in health care costs since 1988, and expects to save $14 billion more by 2050.
5. To Make History
Polio eradication will be one of history's greatest public achievements, with polio following smallpox to become the second human disease eradicated from the world.
The Ada Rotary Club invites donations on this World Polio Day. With a 2-to-1 match from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, every donation made to @Rotary to @EndPolioNow will be tripled. Donations can be made at www.endpol.io/give
More information about Polio: https://www.rotary.org/en/our-causes/ending-polio)
