Polio just a 'plane ride away'
By VANESSA N. GLAVINSKAS ROTARY INTERNATIONAL NEWS

A 22-year-old Pakistani student was released from an Australian hospital on 9 August, after recovering from the polio virus. A national health alert was issued in Australia on 13 July after the student was diagnosed with polio, the first case of the virus in the country in 21 years.

Another case of polio was also detected in Chad last month. Rotary's PolioPlus Partners program quickly released US$241,000 to support urgent preventive immunization activities in neighboring Sudan, amid continued political unrest in the country.

International PolioPlus Committee Chair Bob Scott calls the outbreaks a "wakeup call."

It prove[s] beyond a doubt that polio in your polio-free country is just a plane ride away," Scott says. "It's essential to continue with the PolioPlus program."

The student contracted the disease while visiting his native Pakistan, one of the four remaining polio-endemic countries. He experienced symptoms, including initial paralysis, and recovered at Melbourne's Box Hill Hospital. He was isolated from the community until he tested negative for the virus.

After learning about the case from Jenny Horton, a Rotary club member who consults for the World Health Organization on the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in Pakistan, Melbourne-area Rotarians reacted quickly to support the student's recovery.

Arrangements were made to provide the student with new clothes, since his clothing had been confiscated in case it carried the virus. Jennifer Coburn, of the Rotary Club of Mont Albert & Surrey Hills, Victoria, went to visit the patient in isolation, lifting his spirits by bringing him books, puzzles, and the daily newspaper.

"This is a definite and very easy way to assist a person in need of support," says Coburn, noting how far the student is from his family, and the intense media scrutiny he had been under after the alert was issued. "He is really delighted that he is receiving support from Rotary. The need for human interaction is so important."