No new Wild Polio cases reported this week!  Best Wishes for a Peaceful, Successful, Rotary-filled, Polio-free New Year to you all! 

What is that Polio Picture?  Want to know more about the Novel Oral Polio Vaccine Type 2?  The attached Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) update may help. Download here

Looking Back on 2021 – When we look back to 2021, it may be seen as a turning point for efforts to stop all forms of polio for good. In June, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) launched its new strategy to eradicate polio and protect against future health threats. Two months later, the WHO African Region celebrated one year since it was declared free from wild polio with countries’ recommitments to stopping all forms of poliovirus on the continent. And in Pakistan and Afghanistan – the final two countries endemic for wild poliovirus – transmission has fallen drastically in the past 12 months. Despite this fragile progress, circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses (cVDPVs) continue to paralyze children in under-immunized communities, and financial contributions are needed to implement the new strategy. Building from the progress of 2021, the GPEI is ready to maintain this momentum and overcome final challenges in 2022.  From the December 2021 GPEI Newsletter

World Polio Day 2021 Congratulations! – More than 4,260 Rotary, Rotaract, and Interact clubs around the world registered their participation for World Polio Day. Donors contributed more than $748,000 online, for a total raised — with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s 2-to-1 match — of more than $2.3 million.

Rotary’s World Polio Day 2021 Global Update segments were viewed nearly 6.2 million times on our Facebook pages and YouTube channel and were downloaded more than 4,250 times.

In addition… On World Polio Day 2021, media outlets around the world published more than 900 news stories highlighting Rotary members and our work to end polio. That coverage included TVC News in Nigeria, the Times of Malta, ABS-CBN News in the Philippines, and Saltwire in Canada.

Rotary members in the U.S. also had great success writing opinion pieces and letters to the editor, which appeared in publications such as MinnPost, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Bangor Daily News, and the Dallas Morning News.

Voice of America published two stories highlighting the progress Rotary and our partners have made against polio. One story, featuring Pakistan PolioPlus Committee Chair Aziz Memon, showcased his country’s efforts to eradicate polio and noted its low case counts. The other story, which quoted Rotary International PolioPlus Director Carol Pandak, reported on the resumption of polio vaccination campaigns in Afghanistan.

India’s Statesman published an opinion piece by India PolioPlus Committee Chair Deepak Kapur, in which he focused on what we’ve learned from COVID-19 about the importance of continued immunization and vigilance in maintaining India’s polio-free status.

Gary Hirsch, a member of the Rotary Club of Tucson, Arizona, USA, and co-chair of the Ride to End Polio fundraiser, spoke on a local radio program about Rotary’s polio eradication efforts and how, over the past 12 years, Rotary members’ participation in the El Tour de Tucson cycling event has — with the help of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation 2-to-1 match — raised nearly $54 million.

 A Win Against Polio is a Win for Global Health!

2021 Circulating Vaccine Derived Polio Cases – 489 – Afghanistan – 43 (308 in 2020), Angola – 0 (3 in 2020),Benin – 2 (3 in 2020), Burkina Faso – 1 (65 in 2020), Cameroon – 3 (7 in 2020), CAR – 0 (4 in 2020), Chad – 0 (99 in 2020), Congo – 2 (2 in 2020), Cote d’ Ivoire – 0 (64 in 2020), DRC – 13 (81 in 2020), Ethiopia – 9 (36 in 2020), Ghana – 0 (11 in 2020), Guinea – 6 (44 in 2020), Guinea Bissau – 3 (0 on 2020), Liberia – 3 (0 in 2020),Madagascar – 10 (2 in 2020), Mali – 0 (52 in 2020), Malaysia – 0 (1 in 2020),  Niger – 10 (10 in 2020), Nigeria – 321 (8 in 2020), Pakistan – 8 (135 in 2020), Philippines – 0 (1 in 2020), Senegal  – 16 (0 in 2020) ,Sierra Leone – 5 (10 in 2020), Somalia – 1 (14 in 2020), South Sudan – 9 (50 in 2020), Sudan – 0 (58 in 2020), Tajikistan – 32 (1 in 2020), Togo – 0 (9 in 2020), Ukraine – 1 (0 in 2020), and Yemen – 7 (33 in 2020).

New This Week – DRC – 2 cVDPV2 Cases and 1 cVDPV2 Sample, Egypt – 1 cVDPV2 Sample, Mauritania – 1 cVDPV2 Sample, Niger – 5 cVDPV2 Cases, Nigeria – 14 cVDPV2 Cases and 21 cVDPV2 Samples, Yemen – 2 cVDPV2 Cases. 

A total of 1,110 Vaccine Derived Polio cases were reported in 26 countries in 2020.

Quote of the Day

“I am a Rotarian because I revel in joy of belonging to an organization that not only provides each individual with all the true friends that one will ever need, but also because I wake up each morning knowing that my work will save and change a life that day.”

—Carolyn EW Pierce, Rotary Club of Dalton, MA

The Final Two Polio Endemic Countries:

0 New Polio cases reported this past week.
4 Wild Polio case – 2021. The most recent cases had an onset of paralysis on 11/1/21.
56 Wild Polio cases – 2020.  No WPV1 & CVDPV2-Positive Environmental Sample were reported this week in Afghanistan.

Our Goal is Global Polio Eradication!!

Terry Ziegler, Endowment/Major Gifts Adviser Rotary Region 36