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Westlock Rotary Club played role in the fight against polio

Nobody growing up today has any idea what it was like to have to use an iron lung, but Betty Properzi remembers it all too well. “A few years ago, we went to Fort St. John for a big conference and they had an iron lung there,” she said.
polio talk
Dr. Mark Joffe of Alberta Health Services outlines the history of polio and efforts to eradicate the disease at the Westlock Rotary Club’s 51st annual Charter Night Jan. 18 at the Westlock Inn. Although polio cases have gone from roughly 350,000 a year in 1988 to between 25 to 35 in recent years, more work needs to be done to eradicate it.

Nobody growing up today has any idea what it was like to have to use an iron lung, but Betty Properzi remembers it all too well.

“A few years ago, we went to Fort St. John for a big conference and they had an iron lung there,” she said.

“I thought I was going to just crash. It was unbelievable. It took me back to the hardest time of my life.”

Properzi was trapped in the device for several months as she fought off a polio infection alongside two other children, one of which died.

To this day, she still can’t quite figure out how she managed to get through the experience with her sanity in check.

Properzi was in the crowd at the Westlock Rotary Club’s 51st Charter Night Jan. 18 at the Westlock Inn to hear keynote speaker Dr. Mark Joffe of Alberta Health Services talk about the progress made in battling poliomyelitis, which is also often called infantile paralysis, as well as to the work done in Edmonton to fight the deadly virus.

“It was a rough time. 1952 was bad and 1953 was bad and the virus wasn’t really gone until well into the 60s,” said Dr. Joffe.

“I always remember in 1954 when I was in elementary that classmates were always worried about getting polio. Modern parents have no idea what this is all about. They’ve never had to go through this.”

The Westlock Rotary Club has had a big hand in the global fight against polio contributing in excess of $50,000 to the multi-billion dollar fight against the disease since 1988.

As part of its advocacy efforts, the club also sent a covered wagon from Westlock to the Rotary District Conference in Calgary in 1987, carrying an iron lung along with it to help fundraise for research and vaccination programs. It collected $1 million in pledges along the way.

Polio is a gut-based virus that is caused by ingestion.

Ninety to 95 per cent of people who ingest the virus never catch it. The other five per cent can have minor symptoms, but for one to two per cent, it can turn into complications like meningitis or paralysis.

While the virus tends to affect larger muscles like the arms or legs, it can affect smaller muscles or even the entire body.

If it affects the brain or lungs it can limit the ability to breathe, requiring the use of an iron lung that artificially push air into the lungs.

The virus has been claiming victims for a long time as Dr. Joffe showed a slide of an Egyptian stone tablet depicting the disease dating back to at least 1350 BC.

More recently, epidemics hit Edmonton, the first in 1927, which delayed the opening of the University of Alberta and then later in 1948, which lead to the cancellation of the Edmonton Soap Box Derby.

In 1953, a late epidemic lead to 415 cases of polio, a quarter of which needed breathing assistance. In total, 43 people died that winter. It is still regarded as Edmonton’s worst medical crisis.

However, 1953 was also the year the first polio vaccine was ready for testing.

With assistance from University of Toronto staff, who grew huge amounts of polio cultures to make the vaccine, 1.8 million children were injected with either the vaccine or a placebo in 1954, the largest controlled medical trial ever conducted.

A second, orally-administered vaccine was developed shortly afterwards. By 1962 it was in widespread use and polio cases dropped from thousands to mere hundreds.

In 1988, with smallpox recently eradicated eight years earlier, the World Health Organization declared its intent to do the same with polio by the year 2000 — with Canada being the first country to offer up funding.

While the goal was missed, largely due to political turmoil, as it stands now, polio averages between 25 to 35 cases a year, down from 350,000 yearly in 1988.

“There were 31 cases in 2018. We’re down to really just two places in the world where polio is ongoing and being transmitted,” said Dr. Joffe.

“That’s Afghanistan and Pakistan, both have had a slight upsurge in cases. As you can imagine, the border between those two countries is a pretty tough place to go in and vaccinate children these days.

“So we’re very close. Extremely close, but we’re not quite there.”

Following his presentation, Rotary inbound exchange counsellor Laura Morie announced the club is donating $1,325.65 in Dr. Joffe’s name.

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