Today is World Polio Day
Oct 24, 2019
Today is World Polio Day, a day when thousands of Rotary Clubs around the world hold events to discuss our progress toward eradicating this disease. Vaccinate Your Family’s executive director, Amy Pisani, is president elect of her local Rotary Club, which makes this cause even closer to our hearts.
2019 has been a mixed bag in the fight to end needless suffering from this vaccine-preventable disease. Continuing cases in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria, in addition to new outbreaks in the Philippines, and now possibly Zambia, have been disappointing setbacks.
But it wasn’t a year without hope. Today, the Global Commission for the Certification of Poliomyelitis Eradication has announced the eradication of wild poliovirus type 3. This means that two of three types of wild poliovirus, that cause disease are now eradicated. Two down, and one to go!
Behind the numbers and statistics, it’s important to remember there are people and families still being affected by this devastating disease. We were honored when Richard Daggett reached out to us and offered his personal story about polio for our website. Richard was just 13 years old when he contracted polio. He was in an iron lung for months before progressing to years of intensive physical therapy. We hope you will take a moment to read his story.
Learn about the Polio Survivors Association.
Learn more about polio and the vaccine that helps to protect against this serious disease on the Vaccinate Your Family website.
Related Posts
The Public Health Emergency (PHE) declaration is ending on May 11, but COVID remains a threat. The PHE was first declared in 2020 in response to the spread of COVID-19 to allow for special...
This post was originally published with MediaPlanet in the FutureOfPersonalHealth.com Winter Wellness Issue, and was written by Vaccinate Your Family. Are you more likely to get sick during the winter? Yep – more viruses...
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Leave a Reply