Perry Rotary Club holds bike ride to help end polio

The Perry Rotary Club held their first ‘Ride to End Polio’ event Saturday morning at the Georgia National Fair Grounds. The bike ride is a campaign to raise funds to support immunization campaigns in developing countries where polio plagues young children and families.

Polio is a disease caused by a virus that affects the nervous system and is mainly spread by person-to-person contact. Polio can also be spread by eating raw or undercooked food or drinking water or other drinks that are contaminated with the feces of an infected person.

“The Rotary International has been trying to eliminate polio since the late 1980s, and there were 350,000 cases of polio worldwide in 1985,” said Felix Smith, a member of the Perry Rotary Club, who was involved closely with the bike ride. “Through vaccines and through the World Health Organization and Rotary International, we have successfully vaccinated an unbelievable amount of people.”

Smith said that countries that are most affected by polio are Afghanistan, Nigeria, India, and Pakistan.

“We started with 350,000 cases a year and this year we’re down to 12 cases, which is just an unbelievable accomplishment,” said Smith.

Smith added that Rotary International even negotiated with Taliban in Afghanistan in order to get access to vaccinate people there. “It’s so common for kids under the age of six in India to get polio, and so many in the country get exposed to it,” said Smith. “We have to vaccinate everybody in India every year but we haven’t had a single case in India all year. The only cases we’ve had this year were in Pakistan and Afghanistan. I think Nigeria was free this year too.”

51 riders participated in the bike ride. There were 7, 12, 24, 40, and 50-mile bike routes. The ride started at the National Fairgrounds and it ended there, if you were a rider participating in the 50-mile route.

“We ended up making enough to provide 36,000 doses of polio,” said Smith. “We raised $3,191, minus the expenses of t-shirts and food for the campaign. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gives us $2 for every dollar that we raise.”