Rotarian Kenn's polio mission
A North Berwick Rotarian has been assigned to help co-ordinate a final push in the worldwide effort to stamp out polio.
Kenn Wilson of Macnair Avenue is part of a team which aims to find funds from the 63 clubs in the South of Scotland district to donate to Rotary International's effort to raise $200 million dollars by June 2012 to provide immunisation for children.
He is well experienced to be at the centre of action as he was at the forefront of the eradication programme when it was launched by Rotary in 1985.
Mr Wilson, an architect and resident of Malawi, designed the immunisation hospital during 1986/87 in Blantyre, Malawi.
Over the next 10 to 12 years, fronted by a Malawi Rotarian, the immunisation programme was completed by 1999.
Support
Rotary International launched the PoliopluS programme to protect the world's children against polio, a highly infectious disease which can kill and cripple them.
The organisation's grass roots leadership volunteered support and initial funding for vaccine provided the catalyst for the World Health Assembly's resolution in 1988 to wipe out polio worldwide.
Others involved in the global initiative are the World Health Organisation, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
As a result of their partnership, polio cases have dropped by 99 per cent since 1998 and the world stands on the threshold of getting rid of the disease.
Drive
Four countries — Pakistan, India, Nigeria and Afghanistan — are now the only countries where polio is still endemic.
Thanks in large part to 1.2 million Rotarians worldwide and a global governmental drive, the end is in sight.
A range of fund-raising events are being organised in East Lothian in the build up to the anniversary date of the foundation of Rotary, February 23, 1905, by Paul Harris in Chicago.
Displays, cash collections and an antique roadshow are planned. Some 150 Rotarians in Dunbar, Haddington, Longniddry, Musselburgh, North Berwick and Tranent are involved.
Members of all local clubs will be collecting at Tesco in North Berwick and Musselburgh on Saturday, February 27.
At Musselburgh, there will also be a major End Polio Now display and collection in Brunton Hall during Rotary Week.
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Monday 21 May 2012
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