Rotary Club to celebrate World Polio Day with Dr. Sinton
Ponca City Now - October 2, 2018 11:56 am
In honor of World Polio Day, which is widely recognized on Oct. 23, Ponca City Rotary Club is holding a special lunch meeting as part of Rotary’s 27-year mission to eradicate the crippling childhood disease polio.
In celebration of World Polio Day, the Ponca City Rotary Club will be host a lunch event with a special guest speaker, local pediatrician Dr. Peter Sinton.
Sinton will speak on his passion for ending preventable diseases like polio, why the Rotary-Polio partnership matters, and how his grandmother inspired him to practice medicine.
World Polio Day follows a succession of significant developments that have made 2018 one of the most important years in the history of the polio eradication initiative.
The message to world leaders is clear: support the final push to achieve eradication now while the goal has never been closer, or face the potential consequences of a new polio pandemic that could disable millions of children within a decade.
Since 1985, Rotary has contributed nearly $1.2 billion and countless volunteer hours to the protection of more than two billion children in 122 countries. The disease remains endemic in three countries — Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan — although other countries remain at risk for imported cases.
Kelsey Wagner, President of the Ponca City Rotary Club this year said, “Rotary is a multi-faceted organization, and our passions for helping others are diverse. But we remain ever vigilant in our fight to end polio. It is so important to keep this project at the forefront of our minds as we continue fighting to eradicate it from the world.”
A highly infectious disease, polio causes paralysis and is sometimes fatal. As there is no cure, the best protection is prevention. For as little as 60 cents’ US worth of vaccine, a child can be protected against this crippling disease for life. After an international investment of more than $9 billion US, and the successful engagement of more than 200 countries and 20 million volunteers, polio could be the first human disease of the 21st century to be eradicated.
