Simone Martin, Karyn Harvey, Craig Norbury, Kate Gordon, Melanie Evans and Meagan Maginness from the Casey-Cardinia Rotaract Club raised $600 for the Polio Plus Program.THE eradication of polio is a step closer after the Casey-Cardinia Rotaract Club raised $6000 to provide 10,000 polio vaccines.
The club recently donated the funds to the Polio Plus Program and it will be matched dollar for dollar by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The incoming president of the Casey-Cardinia Rotaract Club, Meagan Maginness, said the club raised the money over the past year through various initiatives.
“Ending polio has been Rotary’s top philanthropic goal, and is something our club is passionate about supporting,” she said.
“It’s fantastic to know our club played a small but significant part in the worldwide project.”
Ms Maginness, a nurse doing a master’s degree in tropical medicine, said polio was a vaccine-preventable disease, still threatening children in parts of Africa and South Asia.
“Polio is an acute, viral infectious disease spread from person to person, with affected people showing a range of symptoms such as muscle weakness and paralysis,” she said.
Rotary began the program to immunise all the world’s children against polio in the early 1980s.
According to Rotary International, since then polio cases have been slashed by 99 per cent worldwide.
For details about joining Rotaract or supporting the eradication of polio contact Meagan Maginness on 0401 217 778.
