A modified vaccine offers hope that eradication is closer than ever

By Jason Keyser

In mid-2017, two groups of 15 strangers lived together for 28 days each in a ring of shipping containers assembled in the parking lot of Antwerp University Hospital in Belgium. They had access to books and movies, a small courtyard for barbecues, a common kitchen and dining room, and a fitness room — all of it behind secure interlocking doors and under the watch of personnel in protective gowns.

What sounds like a reality TV or sci-fi scenario was, in fact, a remarkable clinical trial of the latest weapon in the battle to eradicate polio — a reengineered vaccine called the novel oral polio vaccine type 2, or nOPV2. The study aimed to evaluate whether the altered formula, the first major update to polio vaccines in about six decades, could help end outbreaks of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus, also known as variant poliovirus. Such cases arise in rare instances when the live but weakened virus contained in oral polio vaccines circulates in areas of low vaccine coverage and mutates back into a dangerous form that can infect people who have not been fully vaccinated.

These variant poliovirus outbreaks have emerged over the past two decades as a significant stumbling block in the effort by Rotary and its partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) to wipe out the disease. The outbreaks are different from those driven by wild poliovirus, which circulated naturally in the environment for millennia and remains endemic in just two countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan. But the outcome is the same — the virus in either kind of outbreak can, in rare instances, cause paralysis.

By Jennifer Scott, Rotary Club of Central Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia

Mongolia, a country caught between two giants – China and Russia, is a long, long way from Australia and I never planned to travel there. However, like many Rotary projects, it is through networking and circumstance that you find an opportunity to make a difference. Mine came as part of a vocational training team to Mongolia to conduct workshops to empower single fathers.

In 2017, I ran into Kathyrn Johnson, a fellow mediator, who had just returned from Mongolia where her brother was making a documentary. She had met Professor Namjil from Ulaanbaatar University, who told her how he had been asked for help by a group of 150 single fathers, many of them disabled or unemployed or both. The men were from Erdenet city, a mining town about 300 kilometers from Ulaanbaatar, and were lost in a culture where the very notion of a father raising their children alone was alien.

Professor Namjil explained how it was not uncommon in Mongolia for women to be better educated than the men due to their nomadic tradition. Boys were kept behind to assist with the seasonal movement of the herds while women could be sent to gain their education as a means of assisting the welfare of the family. In recent years this was causing a societal problem. The men felt their traditional skills of horsemanship and herding were no longer useful in an urban setting, causing a feeling of disempowerment which led to depression, alcohol abuse and domestic violence, particularly in the mining towns with high unemployment.

Rotary International District 6270 is pleased to announce the availability of a Global Grant Scholarship for matriculation in the fall of 2023 or spring of 2024.

The amount of the scholarship is USD $30,000 and must be used for graduate school studies outside the United States. NOTE: Applicant cannot be a Rotarian or be related to a Rotarian but can be a member of Rotaract. To be eligible, applicant must be a resident in the geographical area of District 6270, be a student at a college/university in the geographical area of District 6270, or have strong ties to Southeast Wisconsin (see District 6270 map). Experience (professional or volunteer) in the field of study is required. All fellowship/scholarship/stipend funding opportunities must relate to one of Rotary’s Seven Areas of Focus.

Deadlines are as follow:

• September 1, 2022 – Application form available
• January 13, 2023 – Complete Application Deadline (submit online only)
• February 4, 2023 - In-Person or Zoom Interviews scheduled. An in-person interview is preferred.
• February 13, 2023 – Successful Scholar Notified (for matriculation in 2023-2024 academic year.)

Click Here to access the “Scholarships” page on the RI D-6270 website for detailed information, the application form, and other supporting documents. Address any inquiries to Larry Myers, Chair of the D-6270 Scholarships Subcommittee (Email: scholarshipchair@rotary6270.org OR lwmyers2@att.net).

By Arnold R. Grahl

The detection of poliovirus, and even cases of polio, in places where it hasn’t been found for years has demonstrated once again that eradicating a human disease isn’t easy, especially in the final stages.

In recent months, an unvaccinated man in the United States was paralyzed. In the UK, poliovirus was detected in sewage. In Malawi, a child contracted polio. And Mozambique announced its first polio outbreak in 30 years.

But rather than be discouraged, Rotary and its partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) remain confident that they are making progress and can achieve their goal of a polio-free world. There are several reasons for this optimism.

A new oral vaccine, which has a substantially lower risk of causing vaccine-derived variant polio, is now available. This makes it less likely that the weakened strain of poliovirus that is used in the vaccine will mutate and spur outbreaks in communities where immunization levels are low, which has occurred in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

Moreover, the number of cases of the disease caused by the wild virus has been at historically low levels in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the two countries where poliovirus transmission has never been stopped. This presents an opportunity to seize the moment and stop the wild virus forever.

Rotary’s perseverance has played an enormous role in bringing the world to this point. It’s that commitment, coupled with the determination of the other GPEI partners, that is needed to complete the job.

by Dinah Eng

Fifteen-year-old Leo Nupolu Johnson was in school when the shooting began. It was 18 September 1998, and the country of Liberia was poised between two civil wars: the one that had ended in 1997 and the second that would begin in 1999. Now, in Monrovia, the capital, Liberia’s president had launched a violent attack to eliminate his rivals.

As the fighting accelerated, Johnson fled the school, and in the chaos that followed he was separated from his family. Ultimately he landed in a refugee camp in Côte d’Ivoire. Years would pass before he saw his family again.

Today, Johnson, 39, can reflect on his past from his home in Hamilton, Ontario. As the founder and executive director of Empowerment Squared — a nonprofit that assists and inspires marginalized youth, many of them newly arrived in Canada — he has begun to fulfill a dream he nurtured when he arrived as a refugee in Canada in 2006.

“As a child growing up in Liberia, I never had the experience of what a library looked like,” he recalls in a promotional video for the Liberian Learning Center, currently under construction outside of Monrovia. “Still, as a young man, I had this burning desire that no child should be allowed to go to school without access to books and educational materials. I set out on a journey to make sure that this was going to be a different reality for children going to school in Liberia.”

In 1998, all that lay in the future. Johnson remained in the refugee camp in Côte d’Ivoire until 2002, when civil war broke out there. He fled to the Buduburam camp in Ghana, which was host to approximately 50,000 Liberian refugees. One of the women there, a single mother whom Johnson often helped, was given an immigration document to complete. Because she couldn’t read or write English or French, Johnson filled out her paperwork and served as an interpreter during her interview. As a result, he was allowed to immigrate to Canada with her.

by Orly Halpern

During a meeting of about 50 teenagers in Israel’s western Galilee region, students were grouped in pairs and asked to identify how they were similar and different. Although half of them were Jewish and half were Arab, none of them mentioned that seemingly obvious distinction. When asked why, they told a moderator, “We are all human.” 

The meeting, involving students from four schools in Jerusalem and the western Galilee, was part of a peace education program designed and led by Arik Gutler Ofir, a former Rotary Peace Fellow.  It was supported by a 2016 Rotary Foundation global grant and implemented by the Rotary Club of Jerusalem, just one of the club’s many peacebuilding initiatives. 

The students stayed at each other’s homes and learned about each other’s food, music, and cultures. The project was so successful that when the grant money ran out, a local education board integrated the initiative — which had been co-sponsored by the Rotary Club of Mönchengladbach, Germany, and supported by Rotary clubs and districts in Australia, Germany, and the United States — into the civics curriculum.

“When you bring children from both sides to get to know each other, you create a situation where the other is not an enemy,” says Dan Shanit, a former medical clinician, researcher, and program developer who has served as the Jerusalem club’s president twice, most recently in 2021-22. “Enemies are anonymous. They don’t have a face. What you want is to know the face.” 

The pandemic did not just slow down the delivery of essential health services to vulnerable populations. In many cases, it completely cut it off. On 23-24 June, health days were organized at 60 sites in Nigeria. At two sites at Ikeja, Dr. Omolola Salako, a clinical oncologist, and her team witnessed hundreds of women queueing up to get their cervical cancer screening and tests done. Salako is founder of three organizations – Sebeccly Cancer Care and Support Centre, Oncopadi Technologies and Pearl Oncology Clinic, and has spent over 16 years providing quality care and education to cancer patients in Nigeria. She recently shared her experience with Sneha Saloni, a communications specialist with the Rotary Action Group for Family Health & AIDS prevention.

“Being at the Rotary Family Health Days was a wonderful experience. I have always known about Rotary. In 2020, soon after the lockdown, we worked together on a prostate cancer screening program. This year, we partnered with Rotary at the two sites in Ikeja and set up our mobile screening units.

When you look at the cancer statistics, most of the cancer types affect predominantly women. Each time a woman visits me accompanied with her little kid, for cancer treatment, it shakes me up. Most of the time, these women do not have strong family support. There is so much we can do to help them.

Finding Purpose in Pain

I lost my sister to cancer 19 years ago, and this is where it all started from for me. I found a purpose in my pain. When I do my work, I remember the incredibly difficult time my family had to go through. So, I am trying to do my best to help reduce the pain of others.

Each time I treat someone, I feel so happy seeing them win the cancer battle. To know and let them know that they are not alone in this and when my patients come back just for a follow up after being treated, I just feel so humbled. There is a lot of fulfilment in this.

While there is a visible lack of awareness, in many cases the treatment process is further delayed by the time it takes for cases to be detected and arrangements made to cover the treatment costs. Flying out to a different country is not an option that many can afford. The treatment journey is also not easy.