Rotary’s Work in Eradicating Polio (Aired on October 17, 2021)

North Rockland Rotarian and 7210 Past District Governor (2006-07) Carole Tjoa, currently the District PolioPlus Chair, once again joins RadioRotary to update the progress on polio eradication. After polio in 1979, was completely eliminated from the U.S. by the Salk and Sabin vaccines, Rotary used the vaccines to eradicated polio in the Philippines, then in 1985 carried the program to South America, Asia, and Africa, the continents where wild polio was infecting some 35,000 annually. Rotary was joined with the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the U.S. CDC in 1988, joined by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation starting in 2007. Foundation. The immunization program has eliminated the wild polio virus from everywhere but Pakistan and Afghanistan, which continue to have fewer than 200 cases annually between them. Listen, and learn more, both about polio and the remarkable life of Mrs. Tjoa, who came from Hong Kong to the U.S. on a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship and has since received degrees from Oxford in England and Columbia in New York. She joined Rotary in 1988 soon after it first admitted women.

Learn more:

Global Polio Eradication Initiative: https://polioeradication.org/

PolioPlus: https://www.endpolio.org/

Carole Tjoa: https://www.rocklandtimes.com/2017/03/23/unsung-hero-carole-tjoa-rotary-club-of-north-rockland/

Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarships: https://www.pfw.edu/dotAsset/eeaeb34f-0487-4999-9082-0c680d268ce6.pdf

North Rockland Rotary Club: https://northrocklandrotary.org/

CATEGORIES

Global Polio Initiative

Health

International Programs

PolioPlus

--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/radiorotary/support