Posted by Lana Rouff

Foundation Minute for Week of March 18

 

Mobile phones and simple text messages are not only used by us to update appointments, trace stock quotes, sport teams or your spouses’ where-abouts – they are now being used for the victory in the world’s largest public health initiative:  the eradication of polio.  As the disease retreats from the global stage, thriving in only a few remote areas in three countries, it’s up to health workers to deliver vaccines and share information with speed and accuracy.  Rotary and its partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative are strengthening lines of communication by giving cellphones to health workers in Pakistan and Nigeria where a single text message can save a life.  

 

Community health workers across Pakistan have received more than 5, 000 phones through a partnership with Rotary, its government as well as Telenor the country’s second-largest telecommunications provider and Eycon a data monitoring and evaluation specialist.  Cellphone technology signals tremendous progress in polio eradication. It gives governments and polio eradication leaders an advantage in the decisions needed to make to eliminate polio. 

 

Your continued support of Polioplus enables this happen.  Thank you.