The Chemainus Rotary Club is gearing up for World Polio Day on Oct. 24 by planting crocus bulbs at the Rotary sign on Chemainus Road. As part of Rotary’s End Polio Now campaign, members of the local Rotary chapter are doing their part to raise awareness and funds.
Rotary’s polio eradication efforts began in 1979 when volunteers administered drops of oral polio vaccine to children. Since then, members have contributed more than $2.1 billion and countless volunteer hours to protect nearly three billion children in 122 countries from the paralyzing disease.
While some people may think that polio has already been eradicated, these volunteers know that's not the case. Polio remains endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan and has made a devastating reappearance in Palestine.
"Unfortunately, polio has raised its ugly little head in Gaza," says Chemainus Rotary member Terry Jacques.
The Associated Press reported in August of this year that a 10-month-old unvaccinated boy in Gaza is the first case of polio in the war-torn Palestinian territory in more than 25 years. Hundreds of thousands of children missed vaccinations due to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Rotary members say it’s crucial to continue working to end the disease in those areas and to keep other territories polio-free. The Rotary International website states that, “If all eradication efforts stopped today, within 10 years, polio could paralyze as many as 200,000 children each year.”
The campaign is personal for many of the Chemainus volunteers who remember being some of the first in Canada vaccinated for polio as children.
“Every one of us does remember,” says Rotary volunteer Art Carlyle who still has visions of "rooms full of iron lungs".
“People who got polio had to be on ventilators for the rest of their lives. They needed the iron lung to breathe,” he explained.
Thanks to the development of a polio vaccine in 1955, ensuring people like Carlisle didn’t contract polio as children was very simple.
“They put the drops on a sugar cube, I ate the sugar cube, I was done and it was a miracle,” he said.
“It was an inoculation in my left arm,” remembered Jacques. “We were just at school. Nobody asked any questions. Nobody signed anything. We just lined up and got inoculated. Now we’re here, living and breathing to show you that we don't have polio.”
Jacques emphasizes that polio is not a disease of the past, pointing out that the last surviving iron lung patient died only this year. Paul Richard Alexander contracted polio in 1952 at the age of six. Despite being a paralytic polio survivor, Alexander lived until March 11, 2024.
Chemainus residents can look for the crocuses Rotary is planting to beautify the community and act as an important reminder of the work still to be done. The purple crocus is a symbol of Rotary’s worldwide campaign to eradicate polio. Its colour represents the purple dye used to mark the finger of a child to indicate they have received the lifesaving oral polio vaccine. Rotary clubs around the globe plant millions of purple crocuses each year to raise awareness of efforts to end polio.
Community members can help end polio for good by supporting Rotary’s End Polio Now campaign and donations can be made via the organization’s website.