Polio Now

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http://polioeradication.org/polio-today/polio-now/

African region declared free of wild poliovirus
The World Health Organization’s African region was officially certified free of wild poliovirus on 25 August (2020). This milestone comes four years after Nigeria — the last polio-endemic country in Africa — recorded its final case of wild polio. It’s a significant step forward in the fight to eradicate polio and protect the world’s children from this paralyzing disease.

This incredible achievement is the result of a decades-long commitment by Rotary members, working with our partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), African region leaders, and millions of dedicated health care workers and supporters. Read more.

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HOPE THROUGH HISTORY A podcast by historian Jon Meacham -  EPISODE 3|The Polio Epidemic, MAY 5, 2020, CLICK HERE

CBS SUNDAY MORNING - MAY 3,2020, Conquering the polio epidemic

#VaccinesWork For All
World Immunization Week (April 24-30,2020) brings together a diverse coalition of partners to promote the use of vaccines to protect people of all ages against disease. Immunization saves millions of lives every year, and it is recognized widely as one of the world’s most successful and cost-effective health interventions. However, there are still nearly 20 million unvaccinated and under-vaccinated children in the world today.

This year’s theme — #VaccinesWork For All — emphasizes the benefits of vaccines for individuals, their communities, and everyone around the world. It is also an opportunity to highlight how vaccines and the people who develop, deliver and receive them are champions working to protect the health of everyone, everywhere.

Join us and spread the message that #VaccinesWork For All. Brought to you by WHO, UNICEF, Gavi and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. To visit WHO’s campaign page, please click here.

an_update_from_the_fight_to_eradicate_polio___bill_gates.pdf
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Poultney Rotarian Bill gave a World Polio Day presentation on his diagnosis of polio in the early summer of 1943. Bill 's family lived 9 miles north of Pittsburgh, PA. and his doctor for his 15 months of treatment (in isolation) was Dr. Jessie Wright. Dr. Wright would work with Dr. Salk and team.
Information on Dr. Jessie Wright
​See page 110.

Part of Bill's treatment was by using the Kenny Method.
PictureMinneapolis, Minnesota. Sister Kenny conducting a class for doctors and nurses at the Elizabeth Kenny Institute. The two men in uniform are medical officers of the United States Coast Guard who came to the institute to see a patient and stay for the class
PhotographerJack Delano
CreatedFebruary 1943
​LocationMinneapolis, Hennepin, Minnesota
​Call Number (Library of Congress)LC-USW3-017557
How A Pittsburgh-Made Polio Vaccine Helped Beat A Disease That Terrified A Nation 
By MARGARET J. KRAUSS • APR 17, 2015
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Polio is caused by a virus that lives in the throat and intestine. It attacks the nervous system and can result in paralysis. Children are most at risk. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, prevalence of the disease increased.
People were so afraid of their kids getting polio during the summertime, they wouldn’t let them go to swimming pools,”, trying to explain how polio affected society in those years. They wouldn’t let them go to movies, they tried to keep them away from other kids. People were hysterically afraid of it.
Dr. Julius Youngner 

Jim Ferguson ~ Rotary Club of Bluefield, West Virginia

I joined Rotary when I found out about their work to eradicate polio, because I thought it would be a way to  make my mother proud.

See information on Jim Ferguson in the November 2019 issue of The Rotarian.
​See THIRD Profile in the section.
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An undated photo of young John Seccafico (right) with his dad Jim. Courtesy of the Wytheville Enterprise
Jim Ferguson was Chairman of the District 7550 (West Virginia) PolioPlus/Eradication effort for about 5 years. He is now a Past District Governor.
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In 1950, summer blew into Wythe County like a furnace blast.
Motel owners looked forward to their seasonal boom. The young town manager worked on plans for a sewage treatment plant. A doctor settled into his father's practice. Children dreamed about swimming and swinging and climbing trees.
In the country, a farmer lived his sixth year in an iron lung, a little-known survivor of the county's most recent - and fairly mild - polio outbreak.
The Wytheville Statesmen second baseman, 21-year-old Jim Seccafico from Jersey City, started what would become the final season of his career. He was playing a game in North Carolina when his wife took their 1-year-old son, Johnny, to the doctor to check a stiff neck, sniffle and fever.
Within hours, an ambulance was racing through the late June night, 80 miles to Roanoke and the nearest hospital equipped to handle polio.
Fighting polio | From 1950 Virginia to 2013 India
By AMY JETER
THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT |
JUL 21, 2013 
https://www.pilotonline.com/news/health/article_a9566861-da50-5916-8dfe-c520ea49a91f.html
Paralyzed since age 2, influential social worker John Seccafico died in April 2019 at 70. It was big news in a small Virginia town that never forgot him.  Read More

 First Polio Epidemic in United States Hits           Rutland County Vermont in 1894  

Former Ira Resident Survivor of             1894 Polio Outbreak
           1956 March of Dime Poster Person 
                     Event Held at Mt. Mansfield
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Dr. Charles S. Caverly, authored report(s) on polio outbreak of 1894 and others that followed. In 1894, 18 died within a 4 day period. His report is entitled "Infantile Paralysis in Vermont 1894 - 1922".
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Vermont Marble Company Monument for the March of Dimes dedicated on January 4, 1956 on Mt. Mansfield. Ceremony presented on the TODAY Show.