By Amanda Estes

Staff Writer

A $100 million challenge grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation received late last month will significantly boost Rotary
International’s mission for a world free from polio – a goal that
drives local Rotarians to get involved at home and abroad.

Members of the South Portland-Cape Elizabeth Rotary Club are currently
selling Christmas trees, wreaths and garlands in South Portland’s Mill
Creek Park, a fundraiser for local charitable efforts as well as polio
eradication.

There is no cure for polio, which can cause paralysis and sometimes death.

“All of the monies raised for this to date come from individual clubs
like the South Portland-Cape Elizabeth Rotary,” said Tony Wagner, club
president. “Rotary is not just about having dinner on Wednesday nights.
It’s local and international involvement with the community.”

Rotary International will match the Gates Foundation contribution,
dollar for dollar, in the next three years, according to a letter from
top Rotary International officials. The initial $100 million will be
distributed by the Rotary Foundation to the World Health Organization
and UNICEF to support polio immunization efforts in 2008.

“It’s really significant,” said Cape Elizabeth Town Manager and Rotary International Vice President Michael McGovern.

A member of the local Rotary Club since 1986, McGovern has traveled the
world, discussing the need to eradicate polio. McGovern said the
remaining polio cases are found in four countries: Nigeria, India,
Pakistan and Afghanistan. In Nigeria, polio cases are 20 percent of
what they were when Rotary International embarked on its campaign in
1985, he said.

Daniel Mooers of South Portland said Rotary’s participation in
worldwide immunization days has helped bring about a major reduction in
polio cases. Mooers is a former Rotary International Director and the
current Regional Coordinator for Rotary International’s PolioPlus
Partners Program, which helps supply workers conducting immunizations
in high risk countries with bicycles, boats, cars, vaccine carriers,
cold boxes and anything they need to get the vaccination out to the
“hinterlands,” Mooers said.

“We’ve taken the number of polio-endemic countries from 185 in 1977
down to four,”said Mooers. “We just can’t seem to wipe out these small
pockets,” Mooers said. “It might be like [the size of] Cumberland
County in India, where all the virus is. We just can’t wipe it out
because mother’s hide their children because of their religious
beliefs. They’re told this is an American plot to sterilize their
children.”

Mooers said access problems also prevent health workers and volunteers from entering parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Immunization days are usually spread out over a three to five day
period, Mooers said. Volunteers are given street maps, marked with dots
to show where children live. When mothers bring their children to the
central vaccination areas, health workers tip the child’s head back and
put two drops of what looks like liquid silver in the child’s mouth, he
said. Volunteers dip the child’s finger in ink to show they have
received the vaccination. Then volunteers do a “mop up” by walking
through marketplaces and checking children’s hands. If they don’t have
ink on their fingers, they get the drops on the spot, Mooers said.

During his years of involvement with Rotary, Mooers said he has
participated in immunizations in Ghana, Togo, Zimbabwe, South Africa,
India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China.

A 2002 trip to Ghana with late Rotary Governor Sarando P. Giftos, from
Cape Elizabeth, stands out in Mooers’ mind. As the highest ranking
Rotarian present, health workers asked Mooers to administer the first
drops of the vaccination, but knowing the then 80-year-old Giftos had
always wanted to participate in the immunizations, Mooers gave him the
honor.

“He held it over the child’s mouth and the vaccine was dripping over
the child’s nose and the child’s chin and he was crying so much to
think that he was doing this, helping this child, that he couldn’t see
through his tears,” Mooers said. “I had to hold [Giftos’] hand over the
child’s mouth so the drops would go in.”

Giftos died a couple of years later, Mooers said.

Ann Lee Hussey, a former president of the South Berwick Rotary Club,
said the people and the images from her immunization trips have also
stayed with her. On Monday, Hussey was setting out for Bangladesh, her
11th trip to in the name of polio eradication, and she already has a
February trip to Nigeria lined up.

She is also chairman of the international, Polio Survivors and
Associates, a Rotary action group that establishes rehabilitation
centers in polio-endemic and high risk countries.

Hussey is passionate about the cause because at 17 months-old, she was
paralyzed from the waist down from polio. The paralysis went away, but
Hussey had to wear leg braces for several years.

“My right leg is much smaller than my left and I’ve had about six
surgeries overall,” Hussey said by phone from her husband’s veterinary
clinic, where she works as a veterinary technician. “Most of my legs
are affected so I have a different gait than most people.”

Hussey said polio never goes away and some survivors may find
themselves back in wheelchairs or braces, something she referred to as
post-polio syndrome.

“There are certain steps you should take as a polio survivor in not
stressing yourself or overdoing it physically,” she said. “For me to
walk across the room as a person with polio, it taxes my muscles more.”


Oddly enough, Hussey said she is so focused on immunization trips she
is able to push the pain aside and walk for miles in 100 degree heat.

On her first trip in 2001, Hussey said she saw a lot of “crawlers”and
polio sufferers wearing sandals on their hands and using skateboards to
get around.

“Often times what you discover when you go to these developing
countries is polio survivors don’t receive medical care,” she said.
“They could be young adults before they ever see a doctor or have
corrective surgery. I would say most of them never have corrective
surgery.”

Anyone interested in joining the South Portland-Cape Elizabeth Rotary Club, may email Tony Wagner at twagner@incon.com.