Polio deserves no mercy
Editor:
What do Donald Sutherland, Paul Martin, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Jean Chretien and the late Peter Kavanagh all have in common?
They all had polio and experienced its lifelong consequences. They are not the only ones. Every community has someone still suffering its lingering effects.
Is polio dead? No. Not quite. The disease which once was a scourge of the world is still out there – almost eradicated, but not quite.
This month – Polio Month – one can feel very proud to be a Rotarian. Rotary Clubs around the world have led the eradication charge. Together with the World Health Organization, Bill and Melinda Gates and UNICEF, we have it down to 67 isolated cases in 2017, all in remote or wartorn parts of the world (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria). So we have our boot firmly on its neck and we shall not waiver until the job is done.
There are 31,000 Canadians living with the consequences of the disease, many with an extremely tortuous affliction called “post-polio syndrome”.
Older Canadians will surely recall the panic polio once provoked. Personally I can recall, as a little boy growing up in Collingwood, the absolute terror in my late grandmother’s eyes every time I came down with a cold or flu. Was this it? Was our family’s number up?
Everywhere around, it seemed, someone was stricken. Everyone knew someone or had a relative who had the disease, someone who had died or been paralyzed. Classmates at school would suddenly vanish, sometimes permanently. Sometimes we would hear that this or that person was in an iron lung. In the milder cases, they might return after prolonged suffering, but on crutches, wearing braces or in wheelchairs.
Many will recall the overwhelming joy when it was announced that the Salk vaccine had been developed and, in the largest drug trial ever, saw it distributed far and wide. Pupils in public school will remember lining up for their shots. To paraphrase Churchill, it was not the end; it was not even the beginning of the end. But it was the end of the beginning.
Much has happened since but we cannot claim victory, not until the world has gone five years without a reported case. On we go. Raising money for polio inoculations, immunizing children, helping the sufferers, crusading in hopes we can carry the serum to the furthest reaches.
To many Canadians polio may seem like a footnote in history but it’s still only a plane ride away. The Government of Canada recently allocated $100 million in support of eradication initiatives. Since 2000, various federal governments have contributed $600 million to the cause.
Polio deserves no mercy. Give it an inch and it will roar back and take a mile. So here we are – holding thumb and forefinger almost touching – this close. This close! #endpolionow.
Please join with us and donate generously as we finish it off.
Lorne Kenney,
Collingwood.
