President's Message ~ February 2014

I hope you are enjoying our old fashioned winter. My memory may be fading- but it seems to me it has been many years since I have seen so much snow and so many cold days. My Hydro bill also suggests it has been unusually cold. We are indeed fortunate to live somewhere that we can count on warm shelters to tough out winter.

I recently reviewed information on Rotary’s Polio Plus program. Polio eradication has been Rotary’s highest priority program over the past 25 years. Here are some highlights of the last 25 years:

• 2.5 Billion children have been immunized against polio

• The number of new Polio cases each year has been reduced from 350,000 to less than 400.

• Countries in which Polio is endemic has been reduced from 125 to 3. The three are Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria. In Pakistan the Taliban banned vaccinations in some areas in 2012 and 22 Polio campaign workers have been assassinated since that ban but the efforts continue.

• India, which was long thought to be the hardest place to eradicate polio, had their last case in January 2011. On January 20 2014, 3 years after the last case, the World Health Organization (WHO) certified India Polio Free.

• It will cost 1.5 Billion dollars per year just to hold our ground.

• Polio eradication has many partners including Governments of the world, WHO, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, UNICEF and of course Rotary International.

• The target remains – world eradication by 2018.

Our Club will continue to support Polio Plus and many other worthy programs closer to home. It is all part being a Rotarian.   

~ President Bob Strickert