HOWE POLIO PLUS COLLECTION

Members of the Rotary Club of the Howe of Fife recently helped Cupar Rotary Club in its bid to raise funds for the Polio Plus campaign, by manning tables in both the Ceramic Experience and Tesco Superstore.  In addition, Howe members ensured they had a presence in the Howe itself, by visiting Muddy Boots Farmshop and Bridgend Garden Centre. Together with money raised at St. Andrews University, a total of £185.49 was collected at these two venues. 

In 1985, Rotary International became the volunteer arm of a global partnership dedicated to eradicating polio from the world. The PolioPlus programme has had such an effect that it is only in a very few places that the disease still holds sway. A final push to eradicate polio from the world was recently embarked upon in Nigeria, now seen as key to wiping out polio in Africa. There, according to the World Health Organisation, impressive gains against the disease have been made since religious leaders started to back the vaccination programme.

A mass immunization campaign targeting 85 million children in west and central Africa has now been launched in a bid to halt the virus, which spread out from northern Nigeria and has sparked outbreaks in 17 African countries since 2008. Only one polio case has been recorded so far this year in Nigeria, against 42 cases at this time a year ago, in what is Africa's most populous nation, according to the United Nations agency.

Some 400,000 volunteers will take part in the door-to-door campaign to administer two drops of oral polio vaccine to every child under five years old.  Each child will be given a ‘purple pinkie’ to show immunization has been carried out.

President Dennis Beattie of the Rotary Club of the Howe of Fife expressed his thanks to those who donated to this worthy cause, adding that all the signs for ridding the world of polio are now looking favourable.