CHANDIGARH: It is a matter of great pride for all Rotarians worldwide thatIndiahas completed three years without any case of polio, qualifying it for the WHO certification for Polio-Free India, said Rakesh Aggarwal, District Governor of Rotary International District 3080, who was in the city today on his official visit to the Rotary Club of Chandigarh.
Rotary Club Chandigarh presents hearing aids to children & wheel chair to Chandigarh Railway Station
He complimented Rotary Club of Chandigarh for celebrating this milestone by illuminating the Neelam city building in Sector 17 Plaza by Mr. Anil Kumar, IAS, Home Secretary, UT Chandigarh, in the evening, as also the Rotary House. Buildings all across the nation including India Gate and Red Fort would be illuminated to mark the occasion, he informed.
Rotary worldwide has contributed more than US$1.2 billion and countless volunteer hours to the polio eradication efforts since 1985 when Rotary mooted this project and later brought on board WHO, UNICEF, US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, and the national governments of countries around the world.
The three-year achievement also sets the stage for the polio-free certification of the entire South East Asia Region of the World Health Organization in the first quarter of 2014 by the Regional Certification Committee. Rotary says the challenge now is to replicateIndia’s success in neighboringPakistan(which is in a different WHO region), one of three remaining polio-endemic countries.
AfghanistanandNigeriaare the others. Collectively, they create a reservoir from which the opportunistic disease can emerge to re-infect areas where it had been previously stopped. So-called “imported cases” are occurring now inSyriaand several African countries. In 2013, imported cases in non-endemic countries outnumbered the total in the endemic countries 224 to 145, underscoring the importance of stopping the virus where it remains endemic.