On Monday I inducted James Luus. He used to be a Rotarian in Louis Trichardt. I was asked by a few people as to why he did not join our club as he has been in White River since 2001.

Jan Jensen was also a Rotarian when he lived in the Phillipines.

I think people will only join Rotary if asked to do so.

Meeting 24th October

Guests: James Luus, Anns and Partners, Angela Velleman, Debbie Henderson

President Hitesh

·  Thanked everyone for their assistance at the gate of the Agricultural and Forestry show. We are not sure how much we will get for it, but it was good PR

·  Rob gave an informative and entertaining presentation of the recent trip to Badplaas. Rob and June were both thanked for their efforts in organizing the trip.

·  Fellowship evening on 31st October at the Winkler. Normal time, cost R80 pp to meet with visiting Rotarians from overseas and the Knysna club

·  Sloveld Potjie competition 5 November.

.

Sergeant: Dot was sergeant.

Wine draw:

Won by Gavin (again!!)

.Nopolion

·  Rob put in money as he so happy with the amazing job June did organizing the trip to Badplaas

·  Jan put in money as he spent great days in Kruger

·  Frances was glad to have survived the Long Tom Toboggan ride!

·  Leon also made a contribution.

Attendance: 65%

Next week is a fellowship evening at the Winkler

Next meeting: 7th November – Committee meetings

Duties for 7th November

·  Organiser: Netto

·  Grace and Fellowship: Patrick M

·  Sergeant: George

28th October Yvonne Jensen

25th October Don and Rita

Llew Warren Peter

Antoine Mike L Patrick R

Netto Michael W Simon

Ricardo Ronald Hein

Patrick M George Ricky

Judy

The good news....

2016 World Polio Day (24 October 2016)

World Polio Day was established by Rotary International over a decade ago to commemorate the birth of Jonas Salk, who led the first team to develop a vaccine against poliomyelitis. Use of this inactivated poliovirus vaccine and subsequent widespread use of the oral poliovirus, developed by Albert Sabin, led to the establishment of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) in 1988. As of 2013, GPEI had reduced polio worldwide by 99%.

Polio is a crippling and potentially fatal infectious disease. There is no cure, but there are safe and effective vaccines. Polio can be prevented through immunization. Polio vaccine, given multiple times, almost always protects a child for life. The strategy to eradicate polio is therefore based on preventing infection by immunizing every child until transmission stops and the world is polio-free.

And the not so good news......

A Wild-Polio Outbreak in Nigeria

Two cases were announced on Thursday, a major setback for the global campaign to eradicate the virus.

Volunteer health workers wait to immunize children at a school in Abuja, Nigeria, in 2010. Afolabi Sotunde / Reuters

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

August 11, 2016, was supposed to be a historic day for the global effort to eradicate the polio virus. This Thursday would have marked two years since someone on the African continent last contracted the wild-polio virus.

If the continent made it without a case for a third year, the World Health Organization could have certified it as polio-free, and Africa would have joined four other WHO regions—the Americas, Europe, the Western Pacific, and South-East Asia—in eradicating wild polio.

But it is not to be. Nigerian health officials announced on Thursday, the same day they expected to celebrate the anniversary, that two children have been paralyzed by wild polio in the country’s northeastern Borno State.

“It has set us back,” said Isaac Adewole, the Nigerian health minister, according to the Nigerian newspaper Leadership. Borno State will now undergo three rounds of emergency immunizations, he added. Neighboring countries have also been put on alert to look for cases of wild polio.

Matshidiso Moeti, the regional director of WHO in Africa, said she was “deeply saddened” by the news. “The [Nigerian] government has made significant strides to stop this paralyzing disease in recent years. The overriding priority now is to rapidly immunize all children around the affected area and ensure that no other children succumb to this terrible disease.”

“What that means is that the certification will start all over again,” said Haruna Mshelia, the minister of health for Borno State, according to Leadership. “It wasn’t that we were not doing the job. A chunk of the state was out of reach, and we couldn’t reach children there.”

Parts of Borno State are controlled by the terrorist group Boko Haram. One of the public-health campaign’s techniques was to rush in with workers and vaccines as soon as a village was liberated from the group.

Other than Nigeria, only Afghanistan and Pakistan still experience outbreaks of wild polio virus. The two countries have had 19 cases of wild polio so far this year.

Wild polio is not to be confused with vaccine-derived polio, a weaker form of the virus that sometimes emerges when a country’s health system is under considerable stress. Last year, two children in Ukraine contracted this less virulent form of the disease.

Nigeria must now wait at least until the summer of 2019 to receive a polio-free certification. Yet even with Thursday’s setback, the country has made remarkable progress overall: As recently as four years ago, half of all wild polio cases worldwide originated in Nigeria.

I called an old school friend on the telephone and asked him what he was doing.

He replied that he is working on "Aqua-thermal treatment of ceramics, aluminum and steel under a constrained environment".

I was impressed....

On further inquiring, I have learned that he was washing dishes, pots, and pans, with hot water....under his wife's supervision.