The October “Rotary Magazine” is devoted totally to Polio, past, present, and future. It is fitting that this edition precedes the October 24th World Polio Walk that our club will be a participant. In the modern era Polio has become a nearly forgotten disease that once affected millions. It is becoming more difficult to find people who remember the “scourge.” Therefore, our club will aid Rotary International in providing a worldwide emphasis that Polio still exists and our eradication effort is not quite complete. To that goal the “Rotary Magazine” highlights recent efforts to immunize children in Pakistan by using both native workers who are assisted by people who carry examples of what Polio can do to the human body and its bones. As quoted in the magazine RI states that the wild strain of Polio is eliminated in all but two countries - Afghanistan and Pakistan, in an area that is hard to reach and is controlled by traditional Islamic families skeptical of all things western. But the good news is that last year Pakistan had reduced the number of new cases to 17, and from January to October of this year that number is 3. Google states in a search that the number in Afghanistan in 2026 is 32.
Fort Dodge can still count older individuals who have the signs of Polio deformities acquired as children prior to the immunization efforts beginning in 1955. Your eBulletin editor remembers when a child was diagnosed with Polio in rural Nebraska prior to the vaccines all children were confined to their homes/farms and schools closed until the parents were somewhat assured the virus had left the area. As a young child it was a very scary time, but the quarantines of my parents kept me from the disease.