{"id":378580,"date":"2022-10-28T06:04:09","date_gmt":"2022-10-27T20:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=378580"},"modified":"2022-10-28T06:04:09","modified_gmt":"2022-10-27T20:04:09","slug":"rotary-club-donates-over-2k-to-anti-polio-efforts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/rotary-club-donates-over-2k-to-anti-polio-efforts\/","title":{"rendered":"Rotary Club donates over $2K to anti-polio efforts"},"content":{"rendered":"
Rotarians pose with their \u201cEnd Polio Now\u201d shirts last Tuesday after the presentation on polio by Dr. Peter Gregor at the Giovanni\u2019s Restaurant of Hyatt Regency Saipan. Rotarians collectively donated $2,200 to the Rotary International\u2019s PolioPlus, which is tripled to $6,600 by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.\u00a0 World Polio Day was observed on Monday, Oct. 24. (Leigh Gases)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In support of World Polio Day last Monday, Oct. 24, the Rotary Club of Saipan joined the rest of the world in the effort to end polio by donating $2,200 to Rotary International\u2019s PolioPlus program, with the amount being tripled to $6,600 by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.<\/p>\n

World Polio Day provides an opportunity to highlight global efforts toward a polio-free world, and to honor the commitment of those on the frontlines of the fight to eradicate polio.<\/p>\n

Wendell Posadas, president of the Rotary Club of Saipan, explained at their Tuesday meeting at the Giovanni\u2019s of Hyatt Regency Saipan that their partners in the fight to end polio is led by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, which includes Rotary International, UNICEF, the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, \u201cand governments of the world with the support of many others in the globe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Posadas and Rotarians Dr. Peter Gregor and Dr. Ana Maria Gregor led the initial efforts to donate at the meeting and were soon followed by the rest of the Rotarians.<\/p>\n

According to the Rotary International\u2019s PolioPlus, their goal has been to eradicate polio for more than 35 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a founding partner of the\u00a0Global Polio Eradication Initiative, we\u2019ve reduced polio cases by 99.9% since our first project to vaccinate children in the Philippines in 1979. Rotary members have contributed more than $2.1 billion and countless volunteer hours to protect nearly 3 billion children in 122 countries from this paralyzing disease. \u2026Today, polio remains endemic only in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But it\u2019s crucial to continue working to keep other countries polio-free. If all eradication efforts stopped today, within 10 years, polio could paralyze as many as 200,000 children each year,\u201d states their website.<\/p>\n

Dr. Peter Gregor, who was the guest speaker at their meeting, explained what polio is and does\u2014a paralyzing and potentially deadly infectious disease that most commonly affects children under the age of 5. It spreads from person to person via contaminated water and can then attack the nervous system.<\/p>\n

In his presentation, Dr. Peter Gregor also stated that the first polio case in nearly a decade was recently reported in New York, but that the end game is \u201can ambitious $4.8-billion plan to rid the world of polio by 2026. The strategy focuses on vaccinating 370 million children annually against polio for the\u00a0next five years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In support of World Polio Day last Monday, Oct. 24, the Rotary Club of Saipan…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":378584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[261],"class_list":["post-378580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-rotary-club"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}