Today is world Polio day. This didn’t mean that much to me until I traveled to Africa to do Polio immunizations. My first trip was in 2004 when I visited a clinic that straightened the legs of Polio victims. There were two wards, one for the young girls and one for the boys. There were so many kids in various stages of getting their legs straightened. They would soon be able walk with the aid of braces and special shoes, both of which were made on site.
When I returned to this same clinic in 2010 it was different. Instead of kids with Polio, they were treating kids who needed prosthetics because of accidents and land mines. There weren’t enough Polio cases. In this faraway place Polio was so close to total eradication the clinic had to change its mission. From over 300,000 new cases of Polio in 120 different countries in 1985 to less than 500 in the last three years worldwide. Thank you to all of you who have helped. It has taken all of us to reach this point of being so close to eradication of the crippling disease.
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