Katoomba Rotarian, Amanda Woods, is spearheading the local part of a global campaign to eradicate a crippling, life-threatening disease —polio.
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With local members Roza Sage and Louise Markus by her side, Ms Woods, 31, has been gathering letters from the community addressed to Senator Bob Carr, to ask the Federal Government to re-commit to funding the program for another four years.
“Funding for the program runs out this year and we [through the Rotary International campaign] are hoping to get rid of polio worldwide for good by 2018.”
“Australia’s contribution to this effort has had a game-changing effect. It was the Prime Minister’s leadership at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 2011 that restored polio eradication to priority status on the international agenda.”
Ms Woods —who is a member of the Provisional Rotary E-club of the Southern Cross, supported by the Rotary club of Katoomba and has a day job with the Mountains Youth Services Team — said a collaboration with MYST and others, including, the Blue Mountains Youth Accommodation and Support Services, The Glue Factory, Rotary/Rotaract and the Global Poverty Project/Oaktree Foundation had started gathering letters to present to Senator Carr, along with the online petition.
She has more than 30 letters and has asked the local MPs to pass these on.
Australia had been supportive of the campaign in the past, contributing $50 million over the last four years, protecting millions of children, she said.
“Last year alone saw tremendous progress against polio, ending with less than 250 cases reported — a greater than 60 per cent reduction in case numbers compared to the 650 cases that were reported in 2011,” said Ms Woods.
But giving the polio vaccine can be a deadly business — with attacks on health workers in Pakistan in December last year leading to the deaths of nine workers who were killed whilst administering the vaccines.
“It was a timely reminder of such hurdles,” Ms Woods said.
“Nonetheless, in the past we’ve eradicated polio in countries such as Somalia where conflict has been prevalent,” she said.
“Many challenges and obstacles still need to be overcome if we are to eradicate the last 0.01 per cent of polio cases.”
Federal Member for Macquarie Louise Markus said the push to eradicate polio was “something that has had and continues to have bipartisan support”.
“It is through the joint efforts of governments across the globe that the World Health Organisation was able to declare the Western Pacific “polio-free” in 2000 and we will continue to work to highlight this important cause,” Mrs Markus said.
“Should we win government the Coalition will need to take stock of the current foreign aid budget in order to see where funding can most appropriately be allocated.”
To support the campaign go to www.globalpovertyproject.com.
