Rotary closes in on the end of polio

Rotary’s pledge to rid the world of polio is tantalisingly close. Four Ramsey Rotarians recently visited India to help vaccinate 173 million children. Several times each year, the Indian Medical authorities hold a National Immunisation Day (NID) across the whole country with the aim of vaccinating every child under five.India has not had a single case for over four years, but bordering countries do have polio so India must be vigilant. Rotarians travel at the own expense, paying for their own accommodation.

After a briefing session in Delhi, the Ramsey Group joined 20 Rotarians from across the UK, travelling to the town of Bhiwadi, in the province of Rajasthan. Bhiwadi has five Rotary Clubs so visiting Rotarians were given a magnificent welcome, en- joying generous hospitality throughout their visit. The NID programme uses live polio vaccine, administered from a dropper into the mouth, so the Rotarians were able to carry out the vaccinations. The process is in three stages, first two drops of vaccine are dropped into the child’s mouth (you can imagine how difficult this can be, especially with young babies). The vaccine tastes bitter so the second drop must be administered as quickly as possible after the first. Secondly the child’s left little finger is marked with an indelible purple dye as proof that they have been vaccinated. The final stage is to give the young person a small gift as a reward. Local Health Workers keep a detailed record, transferred to a computer at the end of the day. Impressively, they knew their area and the names of almost all the families with children.

The Ramsey Group worked with local Health Workers at a vaccination booth in a very poor area of Gurgaon.

Two stayed at the booth to help with the vaccinations, while the other two visited every home to check if the children had been vaccinated by examining their little finger. The bright yellow shirts worn by the Rotarians was a great attraction and helped as large numbers followed them to the vaccination booth. The next day they returned to carry out the mop-up operation, checking on every home. The previous day, Health Workers marked houses with chalk where children had been vaccinated. Day two, any unvaccinated child, was treated there and then. Memorably, at one house, Sarah-Jane was asked to check on a child in a bedroom. She had to crawl across a large bed, ignoring a man sleeping in the corner, and unravel a pile of blankets to find a tiny baby, which did have the tell-tale purple dye!

The Ramsey Four found their experience in India very rewarding and gained an immense admiration for the Indian Health Workers. Since the 1980s, Rotary and its partners have helped reduce the incidence of polio in the world by 99.9%. In 2017 there were only 22 cases worldwide. Nearly there, but polio cannot be declared extinct until there have been no cases for at least five years - so the vaccination campaign must continue!