He was the first of 27 in Midland to catch polio in the year 1948. Donald DeVore said he had spent the summer with his father in Lorenzo and a lot of time in swimming pools while there.

That s where he believes he contracted the disease.

DeVore had a high fever, and after three days began to start losing strength in his legs. His father put him in their family car and drove him to Abilene where he was diagnosed and spent the next 29 weeks in the hospital. He became totally paralyzed while he was at the hospital. Midlanders got together then and hired a private plane to take him to South Texas and Warm Springs Hospital, the top polio treatment center in the world at the time.

"Two years later, I walked out with a slight limp and was totally recovered," DeVore said.

Next Thursday, the four Rotary clubs in Midland will host a "We are THIS Close" to ending polio dinner at Green Tree Country Club. Officials said they are hoping to raise awareness of the global crisis.

Dinner tickets are $50 each and are being sold through MARC. The event will start with cocktails at 6:30 p.m. and dinner at 7 p.m.

During the first half of the 20th century, the disease crippled millions of children and adults, those like DeVore. But by 1988, there were 125 countries around the world still transmitting polio; last year, there were only four: Nigeria, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan.

The Rotary club has spearheaded a campaign with the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to eradicate the disease. Officials said that once it s eliminated, it will join smallpox as the only two diseases no longer in existence.

There are 1.3 million polio survivors still alive today and approximately 70 percent of them have been diagnosed with post polio syndrome. While it s been more than 60 years since he contracted and survived the disease, DeVore said he still feels the effects it has on his body and, in 1989, became one of that 70 percentile when he was diagnosed with PPS.

"I am one of about one million left that had a life. Just because I can t walk anymore, I was blessed 60 years longer than they said I would be," he said. "Once we survived polio, we felt like we could do anything and survive anything.

Audrie Palmer can be reached at apalmer@mrt.com.

For more information on the dinner and to purchase tickets, contact Jean Jones at MARC at 498-8590.

Medical experts warn against post-polio syndrome
Press Trust of India Sun, 30 Jan 2011 00:56 AM PST
New Delhi, Jan 30 (PTI) Government may be trying to eradicate polio from the country but doctors now caution of an emerging post-polio syndrome that can severely impair body function of those who are already infected with the virus.

Gates, British leader take aim at polio
The Philadelphia Inquirer Sat, 29 Jan 2011 22:12 PM PST
Bill Gates and David Cameron, Britain s prime minister, announced as much as $166 million for polio eradication Friday, easing a shortfall in funding that hinders a global effort to stop the crippling virus.

By Steve Sternberg
USA TODAY 

(Full article at http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20110131/1agates31_st.art.htm)

More on NPR audio: http://www.npr.org/2011/01/31/133377748/bill-gates-goal-get-rid-of-polio-forever

"We are on the threshold of eliminating polio once and for all," the Microsoft billionaire and philanthropist says in his 2011 annual letter, given in advance to USA TODAY and slated for public release today. In an interview, Gates warns, however, that outbreaks in Nigeria, Tajikistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo provide a "scary" reminder that decades of progress will be lost without sustained action.

India, Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan are now the only countries that have active transmission of the disease. Gates says the biggest threat to the success of the Global Polio Eradication initiative in those countries and elsewhere is a $720 million funding shortfall for this year and next. Gates says he is putting the full weight of his influence on the line to rally world leaders to wipe out the disease.

"Clearly, I m betting money, reputation, energy, everything we have to help polio eradication this year," he says.

Last Wednesday, Gates traveled to the United Arab Emirates to meet with Pakistani ministers and seal a $17 million partnership with Sheik Mohammed bin Zayed, crown prince of Abu Dhabi, to fund polio vaccinations. On Friday, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Gates and British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that Britain would give about $62 million.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation plans to boost its $200 million annual contribution by $102 million this year, Gates says.

Gates also is working behind the scenes. He recently met privately with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in Washington to urge him to provide full backing for Pakistan s eradication plan. "Pakistan can do better for its children," Gates says.

More than two-thirds of Pakistan s polio cases occur in the districts where Pakistani troops are battling insurgents, says Michael Galway, the Gates foundation s Pakistan expert.

Children in the USA also are at risk, experts say. Parents who don t vaccinate their children because they are fearful of vaccine side effects create pockets of children susceptible to the virus.

"If you increase the number of unvaccinated children, you increase the chance that this virus will find new subjects," says David Oshinsky, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Polio: An American Story.

In 1988, when the global polio eradication effort was launched, the disease killed or paralyzed 350,000 children a year worldwide. By last year, the total dropped to fewer than 1,500, says Bruce Aylward of the World Health Organization.

If Gates provides the final push for polio eradication — joining March of Dimes co-founder Franklin Delano Roosevelt and vaccine pioneers Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin — he may be remembered as much for providing the "knockout blow" to polio as for founding Microsoft, Oshinsky says. "Bill Gates is finishing the work that FDR started," he says.

Thank you to everyone that participated in this project.  You can see more pictures and read the original project outline in our Knowledgebase/Projects section "Project #4: Bicycle Wheelchairs, Equipment and Truck".

All of this insipired our webmaster Gretchen Bren to write up her experience in visiting HARC before the new equipment.  Her story and pictures are also in our Knowledgebase/Project section "Why I got invovled in PSA".

(posted 9-7-2010)

For full story, go to http://www.livemint.com/2010/09/07222910/Kicking-polio.html

If you live within the San Diego/Southern CA areas, we hope you will try to attend.  For those far away who might wish to come, we hope this notice allows enough advance notification to make arrangements. 

Please also note that this year ResMed Corporation is offering Continuing Education Units (CEUs) free of charge to Respiratory Therapists (RT).  Our hope is that every medical professional who attends will walk away not only understanding more about the breathing needs of polio survivors, but we also hope they will be more aware of post-polio symptoms in general.  Of particular significance would be complications polio survivors hope to avoid during and post-surgery.

Hoping to see you at Breathing & Sleep! 
My best to all,
Gladys"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxVPI3mLLsU

The band s debut album, Très Très Fort, won the 2009 Womex Award for international music. French filmmakers Florent de la Tullaye and Renaud Barrett decided to create a documentary on the band after falling in love with its music when they were in Kinshasa in 2004, working on a movie about the city s music scene. The film Benda Bilili! premiered 13 May during the festival.

Band members have also joined other musicians across Africa in lending their voices to the final push to rid the continent of polio. Through the Kick Polio Out of Africa campaign, a soccer ball signed by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu and a growing number of public figures has been making its way through the continent to raise awareness for polio eradication before traveling to the RI Convention in Montréal, Québec, Canada. Follow the ball s progress on our interactive map <http://www.rotary.org/en/MediaAndNews/News/Pages/KickPoliooutofAfricaMap.aspx> .

Show your support by signing a virtual ball online.
<http://www.kickpoliooutofafrica.org/>

"Of course we re happy to be part of the campaign. After all, we re handicapped by polio, and we are the first group to sing about polio, so naturally we re ready to help," said bandleader Ricky Likabu. "Our song `Polio is simply to implore parents to take their children to health clinics to be vaccinated, as the WHO [World Health Organization] recommends. Parents are responsible for their children, and they need to know how to avoid diseases."

Staff Benda Bilili s European tour began in April. The band will stop in Greece, Sweden, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France in June, before performing 5 July at the Montreal Jazz Festival.

Read more about the band in the June issue of The Rotarian . <http://www.rotary.org/en/MediaAndNews/TheRotarian/Pages/UF_polioband.aspx>

Download audio, see video, and order music from the band s website at Crammed Discs.  <http://www.crammed.be/index.php?id=34&art_id=146>

See a YouTube video of the band s hit song "Polio." <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzCUcO_d1qI&feature=related>

Source : Rotary International News / Courtesy : eFlash_Rotary

Member nations of the WHO, the United Nations health body, approved the plan at an annual meeting in Geneva. It calls for spending $2.6 billion over the next three years on running polio vaccination programs that will focus on Nigeria, India and several other countries world-wide where polio remains most deeply rooted.

Delegates at the meeting highlighted the challenge now: The program is still short $1.3 billion as the global economic slump strains the coffers of the U.S., U.K. and other donors.

"Cash is kind of scarce and there are a lot of competing priorities," said Steve Cochi, senior adviser at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one of the main sponsors of the polio program, in an interview. Dr. Cochi didn t attend the Geneva meeting, called the World Health Assembly.

The new plan comes after a year of setbacks for the polio-eradication program, which WHO, Rotary International, Unicef and others have waged for 22 years, cutting down the number of cases globally to under 1,600, from 350,000 in 1988. Last year, it succeeded in reducing polio in Nigeria, which has been a hot spot for the disease.

Pockets of Resistance

View Interactive

• More photos and interactive graphics

The program has been criticized over the years, however, for missed deadlines as the disease eludes eradication, raising questions among donor nations over whether they should continue to provide funding. If the effort fails to make significant gains under the latest timeline, donors and polio experts say, funding could dry up.

Outbreaks in Africa last year highlighted how hard it remains to kill off a disease that spreads nearly silently. Polio shows effects—usually paralysis—in just one of every 200 people that it infects.

On Thursday, the WHO said it has recorded 202 polio cases world-wide in 2010, down from the 436 cases in the same period last year. Half of this year s cases were in Tajikistan, which had been polio-free since 1998. Fears that it could spread further have sparked vaccination campaigns in neighboring counties, including Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Dr. Cochi said he expects the cases in Tajikistan could grow to between 200 and 300 before polio is fully controlled there.

The polio funding challenges come as other global health programs struggle to raise the money they need to continue in force. On June 18, the WHO will host a meeting in Geneva with current and potential polio donors, including China, Russia and Brazil, according to Sona Bari, spokeswoman for the polio-eradication initiative at the WHO.

Also Friday, the assembly adopted a resolution to rein in pneumonia, which it said kills over 1.6 million children a year. It called for programs to limit the disease by encouraging breastfeeding and promoting hand washing and vaccinations. The resolution comes as health groups are introducing a new vaccine for preventing Pneumococcal disease, which causes pneumonia.

Corrections & Amplifications:

The polio virus shows effects in one of every 200 people it infects. An earlier version of this article said it shows effects in 200 people it infects.

 

Billionaire Bill Gates s Quest to Eradicate Polio

7:16

Nigeria is ground zero for the reemergence of polio. Now the country is making surprising headway against the crippling disease, in part thanks to an unlikely meeting of two leaders: Microsoft mogul Bill Gates and the Sultan of Sokoto, the spiritual leader of Nigeria s 70 million Muslims. WSJ s Rob Guth reports.

To read the full article, please go to:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/189593.php

Sunday, April 11, 2010 at 12:02 a.m.

ESCONDIDO— Jack Campbell didn’t celebrate his sixth birthday with a party like most kids do. Instead, polio confined him to an iron lung for a month at Los Angeles County Hospital.

That was before Jonas Salk developed the polio vaccine in 1955. Since then, many thought the virus would become a thing of the past. They were wrong.

Campbell, 67, makes it his job to educate people regarding the ongoing threat of polio and once played a critical role in helping fund a National Immunization Day in Eritrea, Africa.

Polio, a viral disease that impairs the nervous system and can cause paralysis, struck one morning when Campbell had trouble getting out of bed. “I was too weak to stand or sit,” he said.

Campbell, who lives in Escondido, has been in a wheelchair ever since. As with most polio survivors, Campbell’s muscles have grown weaker as the years wear on.

“Cases of polio still occur in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria, with occasional cases being exported from those countries to others,” he said.

Over the years, polio epidemics have dropped. Last year, the reported number was 1,660.

“The great fear is that as people begin to believe that the disease no longer exists, they then decline to have their children immunized, and the number of cases go back up,” he said.

In 1998, Campbell reached a milestone. He celebrated the 50th anniversary of his virus, and with it came a passion for fundraising to fight polio.

Before Campbell joined the Rotary Club of Escondido, he and his wife, Jill, stumbled upon a 10-year-old Rotary booklet about eliminating polio in the world. In 1987, Rotary International had launched a campaign to raise $120 million to fight the disease.

“It said Rotary could buy and distribute vaccines for eight children for one dollar,” Campbell said. “We thought about donating $12,500 to vaccinate 100,000 kids.”

He mailed a letter to the Escondido Rotary, challenging the club to match his amount so 200,000 children in impoverished countries could be helped.

The Rotary handed the letter to its past president, Dr. Nick Tsoulas. He met with the Campbells and, at the Rotary’s request, the couple upped the ante to $20,000.

A total of $140,000 was raised after dozens of other district Rotary clubs participated. In 1999, the San Diego District Rotary used the money to sponsor a National Immunization Day.

“They selected the country of Eritrea, because they had worked on other projects there before, and its size was small enough that our funds would cover it,” Campbell said.

In eight days, 389,000 children were vaccinated. Rotary International and the World Health Organization deposited the remaining money in a Polio Plus account. As donations filter in, the money is still used to send medical teams to countries with outbreaks.

Campbell remains an advocate for fighting polio. In October, he will serve as honorary chairman at the Annual Rotary District Conference in San Diego, for which ending polio is the theme.

Campbell pointed out that the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agree that if polio’s spread was stopped for six consecutive months, the virus could be eradicated.

“On the other hand, if we give up on getting that last 1 percent, then polio could come back like it was in the 1980s, when there were over a million cases and thousands of deaths every year,” he said. “I want to see polio dead before I am.”

Christina Macone-Greene is a freelance writer from Fallbrook.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/apr/11/polio-survivor-devoted-immunizing-and-educating/