THE CHALLENGES (H)

The enormous wave of advocacy of the cause of fundraising, in this final race conducted by Rotary, led to the adhesion of 22 governments, namely Portugal, the G8 Summit at Kananaskis, in Canada, the Islamic Conference in Malaysia and the AUO/EU Conference at the capital of Burkina Faso. The innovating partnership involving Rotary International, United Nations Foundation, the World Bank and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation allowed to ensure the coverage of vaccines in seven key countries aiming the eradication of polio.
The second challenge faced by Rotary was the one of the logistics that would lead to the immunization of every child on earth against polio. It is never too much to say no other world organization could have successfully carried out such a project by its means only.
Herb Pigman, who since his exploratory journey to WHO in Geneva, had served Rotary as general-secretary, was pulled out of retirement to conduct the RI Task Force of Immunization. His mission was terrifying. He needed diplomacy and persuasion skills until he achieved a permanent and decisive place in Global Health Conferences along with health ministries and such venerable institutions as WHO and UNICEF. Each one of these institutions was right to be skeptical about the good intentions of the NGO’s that had promised much but accomplished little.
What distinguished the effort of the PolioPlus eradication from the past projects of governmental organizations was its wideness. We knew that the only effective program of immunization against polio is the one where there’s a scope to cover every child in the world under the age of five.
The glow of the partnership between Rotary and organizations such as WHO, UNICEF and CDC outcomes from the fact that each part brought its forces to the Program with true generosity.
The WHO has experts without whom Rotary would have never been able to complete a single year of the eradication program. But Rotary had the infrastructures – clubs and volunteer Rotarians in over 165 countries and geographic regions around the world – and the financial resources its partners needed so desperately.
The CDC/Atlanta bore the costs of hundreds of technicians and qualified consultants to backup the efforts of eradication and supported the net of 145 members of the global net of laboratories to the vigilance of polio.
In about 60 years the UNICEF has been a world leader to child attention, working on the field in 158 countries to help children survive and be well successful since a short age and throughout adolescence. And also supporting the child health and nutrition, a basic education of quality to all the boys and girls, and facilitating the access of potable water and sanitation as well as protection the child against violence, exploitation and AIDS. It is financed entirely by the volunteer contribution of governments, companies, foundations and individuals, and through the national commissions to UNICEF, that sell postcards and other merchandizing to help the progress of Mankind.
The net of Rotary volunteers that is estimated to have had so far, more or less 20 million people, worked hand in hand with the UNICEF teams in many of the poorest countries in the world, be it in a very specific and truly decisive work such as social mobilization, or in taking the polio vaccine to the poorest and isolated children who otherwise could be out of the campaigns.
(To be continued in I)

Henrique Pinto
October 09 in World Polio Day
PHOTO: Dr. Koplan, CDC/Atlanta director speaks with Dr. José Cordero (center), Deputy director, CDC National Immunization Program, and Roy King, director CDC Human Resources Management Office