A football travels to 22 African countries to kick polio out of the continent ahead of the World Cup

(HN April 9) In the lead-up to the FIFA World Cup in South Africa this summer, a campaign organized by Rotary clubs across Africa are gearing up for the final push to kick polio out of the continent.

 A football will arrive this weekend in Nigeria - one of four polio endemic countries in the world. Earlier this week it was in Sudan, where it was welcomed by the Minister of Health. It will then travel to Juba en route to the neighboring Central African Republic.

 "As Africa celebrates hosting the first world cup in its history, we are using the football theme to finally work together to kick out this terrible disease from our continent,” said Tabitha Boutros Shukaya.

Rotary’s “Kick Polio out of Africa” awareness campaign was launched on February 23rd with the symbolic kicking of a ball signed by Emeritus Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who himself had polio as a child, and has joined Rotary’s campaign as a good will ambassador. 

From Cape Town, one of the host cities to the 2010 World Cup, the soccer ball will travel through 22 polio-affected countries en route to Egypt, and then to the Rotary International Convention in Montréal, Canada in June. As the ball travels through the continent, additional signatures are joining Desmond Tutu's on the ball as prominent Africans lend their support to this grassroot campaign. The journey is being underwritten by DHL Express.

“As the world comes together for the first World Cup on African soil, we invite football fans –especially in the 32 countries that are sending their national teams to South Africa- to support our global campaign to end polio. I believe in the unifying force of football,” says John Kenny, President of Rotary International. 

During the ball’s four-month journey from the southern tip of the continent to Alexandria, Egypt, Rotary clubs in polio-affected African countries are organizing football related awareness events to mobilize the public for mass immunization rounds this spring. In early March, a total of 19 countries in West and Central Africa participated in synchronized national immunization activities, targeting 85 million children under the age of five. 

Polio knowledge events have been held as the ball has made its way through Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia. In Angola, its most popular and revered soccer player, Fabrice Akwa signed the ball to add his support to polio eradication.

Also this week, in a major boost to the campaign, musicians from across Africa signed up to fight polio, led by the African group, Staff Benda Bilili, which means “look beyond appearances” in Lingala. Staff Benda Bilili are a group of eight former street musicians from Kinshasa, whose debut album Très Très Fort has received international media acclaim and won the 2009 Womex Artist award. The core of the band consists of four singers, who are all polio survivors. Their signature song, “Polio”, speaks of the disease that drastically changed their lives, and urges parents to immunize their children. 

Branded the “Kings of the Congo” by a French newspaper, the band pumps out beautiful Congolese rumba-rooted songs.

“Of course we’re happy to be part of the campaign. After all, we’re handicapped by polio, and we are the first group to sing about polio, so naturally we’re ready to help,” says band leader Ricky Likabu after being named Rotary polio goodwill ambassadors. “Our song ‘Polio’ is simply to implore parents to take their children to health clinics to be vaccinated, as the WHO (World Health Organization) recommends. Parents are responsible for their children, and they need to know how to avoid diseases.”

In Benin, pop singer and Unicef ambassador Zeynab Abib has been lending her voice to the polio eradication campaign and childhood vaccination with her song “Sauvons la vie de nos enfants” (Let’s save the life of our children) and with her participation in many local social mobilization events.

Next week, an immunization campaign targeting 2.8 million Sudanese children under the age of five will be staged across Sudan. A total of 45 cases of polio were reported last year in Sudan, mostly in the south.

According to a WHO representative in Ethiopia, Dr. Fatoumata Nafo-Traore, the polio eradication initiative has saved more than 5 million children from being paralyzed. 

“This is a great achievement and we cannot fail now that we are very close to finishing the job.  Sorry we are late for you, but we will not let down your next generation,” said Dr. Nafo-Traore while handing the ball to young polio victims at Cheshire Services in Ethiopia.

Former South African President Nelson Mandela, in his 1996 address at the Organization for African Unity Summit formally kicked off the “Kick Polio out of Africa” campaign.  He declared: “We are calling on the continent's football players to bring their enormous influence to this campaign. Only unified efforts which galvanise whole societies towards these goals will succeed in kicking this virus, that looks so much like a football, out of Africa and eventually, out of the world.” 

In the past two decades, the incidence of the disease has been reduced by 99 percent worldwide and in Africa, only Nigeria remains polio-endemic.  Out of sight, out of mind for many, but the disease still affects children in several other high-risk countries, emphasizing the need to protect all African children against polio.

Through an alliance with the African Football Confederation, leading players from across the continent have participated in the “Kick Polio out of Africa” awareness campaign by distributing posters, conducting radio interviews and holding autograph sessions.

Because viruses do not observe man-made borders, previously polio-free countries remain at risk due to international travel and migration. Following a 2008 outbreak in northern Nigeria, the virus spread into neighboring countries and as far as Angola, Mauritania and Kenya. Of the total 735 polio cases in Africa in 2009, 388 cases were recorded in Nigeria. 

However, progress is being made. The incidence of polio in Nigeria has dropped by more than 50 percent since 2008 and only 13 cases have been reported since August and only one case so far in 2010.

Polio eradication has been Rotary’s top priority for more than two decades. The international humanitarian service organization is a spearheading partner in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, along with the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and UNICEF.   

Great progress has been made, and the incidence of polio infection has plunged from about 350,000 cases in 1988 to fewer than 2,000 in 2009.   Since the campaign began more than two billion children have been immunized in 122 countries, preventing five million cases of paralysis and 250,000 pediatric deaths.

Rotary recently pledged to raise US$200 million to match $355 million in challenge grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. All of the resulting $555 million will be spent in support of eradication activities worldwide.

---Staff, files