Rotary Clubs to launch ‘End Polio Now’ campaign

ALL 14 Rotary Clubs in Negros Occidental are coming together to launch the Polio Awareness Campaign on Wednesday, October 23, 5:00 PM, at Robinson’s Place Bacolod.

The Council of Presidents, led by Sugar Ababao, president of the Rotary Club of Bacolod-North, is joining forces to heighten awareness on ending the debilitating and deadly polio in the light that it has resurfaced in the Philippines 19 years after our country was declared polio-free.

Rotary International has been instrumental in eradicating polio worldwide and have succeeded in doing so it almost all countries except in three – Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria, until the Philippines confirmed two cases recently which categorized it as an epidemic since it can spread fast.

“A single confirmed polio case of vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 or two positive environmental samples that are genetically linked isolated in two different locations is considered an epidemic in a polio-free country,” DOH chief Francisco Duque III said.

Polio is a highly infectious viral disease, which mainly affects young children. The virus is transmitted by person-to-person spread mainly through the fecal-oral route.

“We have to put importance on the re-emergence of polio in our country and we must not allow our campaign in the last two decades to go to waste,” Ababao said, adding that all it takes is for “each one of us must take up the challenge to educate the people, especially parents, that it is crucial and there is nothing to be afraid to bring your child for polio immunization.”

“All it takes is a drop to save lives,” Ababao said.

As part of the program on Wednesday, each president will bring a child for immunization against polio.

The program will also feature guest speakers in the medical field who will talk on the importance of eliminating polio in our country and in our country.

The “End Polio Now” campaign is a joint project of the Rotary Clubs of Bacolod, Bacolod-South, Bacolod-East, Bacolod-West, Bacolod-North, Metro-Bacolod, Bacolod-Marapara, Bacolod Central, Silay, Kabankalan, Victorias, Binalbagan-East, Escalante and San Carlos-Calatrava.