Editor's page (December 2008)

A year ago, Rotary’s US$100 Million Challenge was launched to match the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s $100 million grant for polio eradication. And it was your successful fundraising efforts that inspired our staff to recognize Rotary’s commitment to making the world polio-free by highlighting recent Subnational Immunization Days in India and Nepal. We sent staff photographers Alyce Henson and Miriam Doan to document the efforts of the Rotary Club of Birgunj Metropolis, Nepal, which worked in close partnership with several organizations, government officials, Rotaractors, and other Rotary clubs.

We have run many photos in The Rotarian and on Rotary.org of Rotarians dropping the polio vaccine into the mouths of children. This month’s photo essay captures Rotarians doing the work that precedes those inoculations. Alyce and Miriam visited the Panacea Biotec factory in Delhi, India, the starting point of the polio vaccine, and then met up with Rotarians again in Patna. From there, the two made the nine-hour drive into the border state of Bihar and eventually crossed into Nepal. “So much effort takes place behind the scenes before the drops reach a community,” Alyce says. Rotarians are involved with the factories that pack, store, and ship the vaccine, and with the drivers who transport it, making certain the vaccine is properly stored in community facilities.

Surveillance, advocacy, social mobilization, door-to-door activities, and transportation of the vaccine all lead up to the final moment, when a child is immunized. There are midjourney resting places for mothers and families traveling long distances to permanent immunization centers. Rotarians knock on doors to inform families affected by polio of rehabilitation clinics and nearby resources. Rotarians and Rotaractors take to the streets and stop rickshaw drivers carrying families and children, often bringing children to the booth to receive the drops.

Rotarians have now contributed more than $730 million toward the goal of polio eradication. This month, we dedicate coverage to the thousands of Rotarians who have contributed, both in donations and actions, to that great cause.