International Rotary Trip

Afghanistan and Pakistan have 15 cases of polio between them. It is estimated that the world will become polio free in the year 2016. We will continue to immunize to make sure that there are no new cases.

Chris made a trip to India in 2004 to immunize children. She then went to Nigeria last year to immunize children. During one of these trips there is an entire team; this time 13 while the trip to India had 114. In this trip one member was a Roteract member and the other was a friend of a Rotary member. All the rest were Rotarians. Nigeria has been polio free since July 24, 2014. Each of the countries that are active in immunizations have set up Emergency Operations Centers that have World Health Organization, Centers For Disease Control, Rotary and others have offices in the same buildings. One of the centers was the first that found the Ebola Virus.

The vials of vaccine have to be kept at a certain temperature so there are massive refrigeration units in the buildings to keep the vials safe. If a strip turns black on the vials then the vaccine is no longer effective.

The school that they went to had 10,000 children and ones 5 and under are vaccinated. They are orally administered presently though in the future the vaccinations will be done through injection. After immunizations the children are marked with a purple pinky. They are given two drops of the vaccine orally and the purple pinky is a sign that they have been immunized. If they go through an area and see that the pinky is not marked then they administer the vaccine.

In villages they go door to door to immunize children. They utilize drumming to bring them out of their houses and there are children that stream out of the houses to see what is going on and they are immunized in the process.

There are survivors of polio that exist in the area and there is a company that converts old bicycles in to wheelchairs which help a person gain dignity and mobility. One of the requirements for getting the donated chair is that they have to use it to attend school or get a job so that they can become a productive member of their community.