ROTARY RAISES MONEY, AIMES AT A `WORLD WITHOUT POLIO'

"Target 2000: A World Without Polio" is the theme of World Health Day 1995.

Rotary International, headquartered in Evanston, Ill., will be among the most visible observers of World Health Day April 7.

Rotarians will be involved in everything from a fund-raising walk across the United States to participation in a national immunizations day, in which more than 70 million children will be immunized against polio in a number of European, Mediterranean and Central Asian nations.

The World Health Day theme is "tailor-made" for Rotarians everywhere, said Robert I. Morrow, a member of the Rotary Club of Cape Girardeau, which has been involved in a decadelong "PolioPlus," program, a project designed to eradicate polio worldwide.

Since 1985, Rotarians have focused on a global polio eradication effort. During the decade Rotarians have raised more than $245 million to support immunization projects and provide polio immunizations to more than 3 million children in 103 countries.

The Rotary immunization program originated in the United States to help stamp out polio, said Martin Kantor, a spokesman for the national Rotary Foundation at Evanston. All the money has come from pledges made by Rotarians and is sponsored by the Rotary Foundation.

Rotary International president Bill Huntley has issued reminders to all Rotary Clubs that World Health Day is a good time to focus public attention and support on global polio eradication efforts.

The Rotary Foundation works with United National World Health Organization (WHO) medical personnel, who administer polio immunizations. WHO has issued a pledge of its own, to eradicate poliomyelitis from the world by the year 2000.

In addition to polio shots, children and infants receive measles and DPT (diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus) immunizations as part of the WHO program.

More than $350,000 has been raised in the Rotary International District 6090 of Southeast Missouri, which extends from Jefferson County to the Arkansas line, and westward from the Mississippi River to Rolla and Willow Springs.

Stone Manes, a member of the Jackson Rotary Club, has served as chairman of district's PolioPlus program since it started in 1987.

Manus was appointed as district chairman by Morrow, who was district governor when the local clubs took on the project.

Three of the 38 district clubs, which have been leaders in the PolioPlus fund-raising efforts, are in Cape Girardeau County. The Cape Girardeau Rotary Club has pledged more than $40,000 for PolioPlus. In Jackson, club members have pledged more than $30,000 and Cape Girardeau West Rotary Club pledges total more than $20,000.

"When the project started, the Rotary goal was $112 million," said Manus. "More than $246 million has been raised."

The Rotary fund drive for polio has subsided, but money is on hand to continue the PolioPlus program, Kantor said.

"We're still collecting from pledges, and we're still receiving funds for the project.

Rotary International was the catalyst through which the global program came into existence," said Dr. Nick Ward, chief of the Expanded Program on Immunization of the World Health Organization. If Rotary had raised almost a quarter-billion dollars, "I very much doubt that the WHO would have made the commitment of global eradication."

Which is why the 27,000 Rotary clubs in 150 countries are keeping polio eradication in the public's thoughts.

That is why 56-year-old Bob Saunders, a member of the Rotary Club of Toms River, N.J., will dip a foot into the Atlantic Ocean April 7, and start a 3,000-mile trip to Los Angeles. He expects to generate $200,000 in pledges across the country.

On April 6, Rotarians will unveil a statue to PolioPlus, created by Glenna Goodacre, sculptor of the Vietnam Memorial for Women in Washington.

Although some 50,000 cases of polio still occur in the world each year, according to WHO, the eradication goal by the year 2000 is still reachable. In 1994, 144 countries reported no polio cases. In September, the Western Hemisphere was declared polio-free.

"Rotary International has committed itself to make the eradication of polio our highest priority until the disease is certified as eradicated," said Dr. John Sever, general coordinator of Rotary's PolioPlus Task Force and former chief of infectious disease research at the National Institute of Health.

"This will be our gift to the future children of the world," he said.