By Amanda Estes
Staff Writer
A $100 million challenge grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation received late last month will significantly boost Rotary International’s mission for a world free from polio – a goal that drives local Rotarians to get involved at home and abroad.
Members of the South Portland-Cape Elizabeth Rotary Club are currently selling Christmas trees, wreaths and garlands in South Portland’s Mill Creek Park, a fundraiser for local charitable efforts as well as polio eradication.
There is no cure for polio, which can cause paralysis and sometimes death.
“All of the monies raised for this to date come from individual clubs like the South Portland-Cape Elizabeth Rotary,” said Tony Wagner, club president. “Rotary is not just about having dinner on Wednesday nights. It’s local and international involvement with the community.”
Rotary International will match the Gates Foundation contribution, dollar for dollar, in the next three years, according to a letter from top Rotary International officials. The initial $100 million will be distributed by the Rotary Foundation to the World Health Organization and UNICEF to support polio immunization efforts in 2008.
“It’s really significant,” said Cape Elizabeth Town Manager and Rotary International Vice President Michael McGovern.
A member of the local Rotary Club since 1986, McGovern has traveled the world, discussing the need to eradicate polio. McGovern said the remaining polio cases are found in four countries: Nigeria, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. In Nigeria, polio cases are 20 percent of what they were when Rotary International embarked on its campaign in 1985, he said.
Daniel Mooers of South Portland said Rotary’s participation in worldwide immunization days has helped bring about a major reduction in polio cases. Mooers is a former Rotary International Director and the current Regional Coordinator for Rotary International’s PolioPlus Partners Program, which helps supply workers conducting immunizations in high risk countries with bicycles, boats, cars, vaccine carriers, cold boxes and anything they need to get the vaccination out to the “hinterlands,” Mooers said.
“We’ve taken the number of polio-endemic countries from 185 in 1977 down to four,”said Mooers. “We just can’t seem to wipe out these small pockets,” Mooers said. “It might be like [the size of] Cumberland County in India, where all the virus is. We just can’t wipe it out because mother’s hide their children because of their religious beliefs. They’re told this is an American plot to sterilize their children.”
Mooers said access problems also prevent health workers and volunteers from entering parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Immunization days are usually spread out over a three to five day period, Mooers said. Volunteers are given street maps, marked with dots to show where children live. When mothers bring their children to the central vaccination areas, health workers tip the child’s head back and put two drops of what looks like liquid silver in the child’s mouth, he said. Volunteers dip the child’s finger in ink to show they have received the vaccination. Then volunteers do a “mop up” by walking through marketplaces and checking children’s hands. If they don’t have ink on their fingers, they get the drops on the spot, Mooers said.
During his years of involvement with Rotary, Mooers said he has participated in immunizations in Ghana, Togo, Zimbabwe, South Africa, India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China.
A 2002 trip to Ghana with late Rotary Governor Sarando P. Giftos, from Cape Elizabeth, stands out in Mooers’ mind. As the highest ranking Rotarian present, health workers asked Mooers to administer the first drops of the vaccination, but knowing the then 80-year-old Giftos had always wanted to participate in the immunizations, Mooers gave him the honor.
“He held it over the child’s mouth and the vaccine was dripping over the child’s nose and the child’s chin and he was crying so much to think that he was doing this, helping this child, that he couldn’t see through his tears,” Mooers said. “I had to hold [Giftos’] hand over the child’s mouth so the drops would go in.”
Giftos died a couple of years later, Mooers said.
Ann Lee Hussey, a former president of the South Berwick Rotary Club, said the people and the images from her immunization trips have also stayed with her. On Monday, Hussey was setting out for Bangladesh, her 11th trip to in the name of polio eradication, and she already has a February trip to Nigeria lined up.
She is also chairman of the international, Polio Survivors and Associates, a Rotary action group that establishes rehabilitation centers in polio-endemic and high risk countries.
Hussey is passionate about the cause because at 17 months-old, she was paralyzed from the waist down from polio. The paralysis went away, but Hussey had to wear leg braces for several years.
“My right leg is much smaller than my left and I’ve had about six surgeries overall,” Hussey said by phone from her husband’s veterinary clinic, where she works as a veterinary technician. “Most of my legs are affected so I have a different gait than most people.”
Hussey said polio never goes away and some survivors may find themselves back in wheelchairs or braces, something she referred to as post-polio syndrome.
“There are certain steps you should take as a polio survivor in not stressing yourself or overdoing it physically,” she said. “For me to walk across the room as a person with polio, it taxes my muscles more.”
Oddly enough, Hussey said she is so focused on immunization trips she is able to push the pain aside and walk for miles in 100 degree heat.
On her first trip in 2001, Hussey said she saw a lot of “crawlers”and polio sufferers wearing sandals on their hands and using skateboards to get around.
“Often times what you discover when you go to these developing countries is polio survivors don’t receive medical care,” she said. “They could be young adults before they ever see a doctor or have corrective surgery. I would say most of them never have corrective surgery.”
Anyone interested in joining the South Portland-Cape Elizabeth Rotary Club, may email Tony Wagner at twagner@incon.com.