San Francisco Area Rotary Club Members Join Massive Effort To Immunize 70 million West African Children Against Polio; Part of Global Effort To Eradicate Polio Worldwide.

Business Editors

SAN FRANCISCO & ACCRA, Ghana--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 10, 2000

Rotary club members from the San Francisco/Oakland area will lead a group of 93 Rotary volunteers from the Western United States to the West African Country of Ghana to participate in this year's third polio National Immunization Day (NID).

Guiding the trip is Rotary member James Mealey. "We are proud to be part of this historic effort to rid the world of a crippling disease that has impacted millions of lives throughout the centuries," said Mealey. "We will look back on this experience with immense gratification when the world is certified polio-free in the new millennium."

The group of Rotary volunteers is scheduled to depart San Francisco on October 16 and arrive in Accra, Ghana on October 17. They will work with Ghanaian Rotary volunteers to help at immunization posts, deliver polio vaccine, help parents get their children vaccinated, transport health workers and recruit fellow volunteers to assist during the NID. The group is scheduled to return to the US on October 25.

Thirteen (13) additional countries in West and Central Africa will hold their National Immunization Days within the same week as the Ghana NID to prevent cross-border transmission of the poliovirus. An expected total of 70 million children will be vaccinated against polio during this time. The countries taking part in the regional effort are: Benin, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. Three additional countries will join the effort during a second round of immunizations in mid-November. They are Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon and Chad.

Recognizing the Bay area international trip, Frank Devlyn, President of Rotary International said, "This volunteer spirit is what enables Rotary to move toward its goal of polio eradication. Thanks to the dedication of Rotary volunteers worldwide, the next century will begin with one less threat against the children of the world."

This is not Rotary's first endeavor of this kind. In January 2000, a group of Pittsburgh Rotarians aided in a National Immunization Day in Bombay, India. In January 1999, over 100,000 Rotary members and their families joined the Indian Government in immunizing over 130 million children in one day. Later that year, Rotary volunteers returned to India for a second round of immunizations, vaccinating nearly 150 million children - signaling the largest public health event ever in the world.

Endemic on five continents in 1988, polio today strikes children in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Significant progress is being made. According to World Health Organization, the number of polio cases has plunged 95 percent in the last ten years. The Americas were declared free from polio in 1994. Health experts predict the Western Pacific region as the next block of countries to be declared free from polio, with the rest of the world following closely behind. When this is accomplished, polio will be the second disease ever completely eliminated from the world, after smallpox.

Rotary International is one of the world's largest volunteer service organizations with 1.2 million members in 163 countries. Launched in 1985, the PolioPlus program is the most ambitious program in Rotary's history. To date, Rotary has contributed US$378 million to the protection of more than two billion children. By 2005, Rotary's financial commitment will reach nearly a half billion US dollars.

With its community-based network worldwide, Rotary is the volunteer arm and lead private sector partner of the global initiative dedicated to certifying the world polio-free by the year 2005 - Rotary's centennial anniversary.

The global polio eradication effort was spearheaded in 1988 by Rotary International, the World Health Organization, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).