Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I firstly want to commend the member for Fremantle for bringing this motion to the House. I know how committed she is on these humanitarian issues and I commend her for it. Polio is a highly infectious viral disease which may attack the central nervous system and is characterised by symptoms which range from a mild, non-paralytic infection to total paralysis in just a matter of hours. If polio is not eradicated, the world will always live with the potential to see the disease rise up again—and no-one wants that. If the United States $9 billion global investment towards eradication is not capitalised upon, 10 million children will be paralysed in the next 40 years.

Throughout history polio has been one of the greatest causes of disability and still today there is no cure. Major polio epidemics first began to occur in Europe in the 1880s and soon spread to the United States of America. By 1910, epidemics were becoming regular across the developed world, typically during the summer months. At its peak in the 1940s and 1950s, polio was paralysing or killing more than half a million people worldwide every year. Over the past 30 years global collaboration has reduced cases by 99 per cent. In 1988 there were more than 350,000 cases of polio throughout the world. In 2011 there were just 650 and the number of polio endemic countries had been reduced from 125 to three. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative advises that, in the past six months, there have been 92 cases of polio throughout the world—63 cases in Nigeria, 15 in Pakistan, 12 in Afghanistan and two in Chad.

Australia has been declared polio free. As the World Health Organization announced on 29 October 2000, the Western Pacific region has stopped the circulation of the indigenous wild polio virus. In 1985 Rotary International launched PolioPlus, a program which helps Rotary fund operational costs such as transportation, vaccine delivery, social mobilisation, and training of health workers in support surveillance activities. To date, Rotary, a wonderful organisation, has contributed more than US$1 billion.

PolioPlus promotes four key strategies for stopping the transmission of the polio virus—firstly, routine immunisations. This is essential as it is the primary way polio-free countries protect their children from the threat of imported polio. Four doses of oral polio vaccine in the first year of life are critical. Secondly, there are national immunisation days. Rotarians are the driving force of these days and provide funds for millions of drops of vaccine, promote campaigns in communities, distribute vaccines to health centres and serve as monitors working with local officials to reach every child possible. Thirdly, there is surveillance. Rotarians help health workers, paediatricians and others to find, report and investigate cases of acute flaccid paralysis, ideally within 48 hours of onset. PolioPlus has also helped fund containers which preserve during transport to a laboratory the integrity of samples taken from a patient. Lastly, Rotary supports mop-up campaigns, which are similar to national immunisation days but on a smaller and often house-to-house scale.

Districts 9700 and 9710, Rotary clubs in my electorate of Riverina, work hard to contribute to the PolioPlus program, holding movie nights and other fund-raising events to help rid the world of this scourge. It is also Rotary which has led the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, along with the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children's Fund and the US Centers for Disease Control. Since 1985 more than two billion children have been immunised through this great initiative. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative objectives are to interrupt transmission of the wild polio virus as soon as possible; to achieve certification of global polio eradication; and to contribute to health systems development and strengthening routine immunisation and surveillance for communicable diseases in a systemic way.

Thanks to the vaccinations offered through the Global Polio Eradication Initiative there are more than five million people walking today who would be paralysed had they not been immunised. Whilst polio remains endemic in only three countries, it has re-established transmission in Angola, Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo, all of which were previously polio free. There are also several more countries which experienced outbreaks in 2011 due to the importation of the polio virus. This highlights the importance of immunisation even in countries which are thought to be polio free.

For the World Health Organization to certify a region to be polio free, it must meet the following conditions: there are at least three years of zero polio cases due to wild poliovirus; disease surveillance in countries meet international standards; and each country must illustrate the capacity to detect, report and respond to imported polio cases. In an address to the regional committee for South-East Asia on 5 September this year, Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, stated:

On present trends, this region is set to be declared polio-free in January 2014.

You have provided definitive proof that eradication is technically feasible, and you have done so in what was arguably the most challenging of all the remaining strongholds of this virus.

This is what your experience tells the world. The poliovirus is not permanently entrenched. It is not destined to remain a perpetual threat to each new generation of children. It can indeed be driven out of existence.

That was wonderful news, fantastic, about moving towards helping the world become polio free. However, there is still a way to go.

For the world to be declared polio free, laboratory stocks must be contained and the safe management of the wild virus in activated polio vaccine manufacturing sites must be assured. Prevention of polio not only stops a person developing a debilitating disease, but also helps reduce poverty as it allows children and their families a greater chance of leading healthier and more productive lives. The global polio eradication initiative is expanded in most countries to also address other infectious diseases, such as avian influenza and Ebola, by building effective disease reporting and surveillance systems, training local doctors in establishing a worldwide laboratory network. This capacity is being utilised in health emergencies, including the 2010 floods in Pakistan and the 2011 drought in the Horn of Africa. It is important we do anything and everything we can to eradicate polio, helping Rotary and stopping this disease from spreading, including ensuring immunisation takes place early to prevent children and adults becoming infected in the future.

Finally, I would like to pay particular tribute to John Winterbottom, a good friend of mine, a fellow from Wagga Wagga who suffered the effects of polio early in his life. John is regarded as Wagga Wagga's most authoritative historian. He has not been well of late, battling a number of health complications. Despite his lifelong struggles, John has contributed marvellously to his community, such that he is a past recipient of Wagga Wagga's Citizen of the Year. His achievements show what can be done despite having such a debilitating disease. John's cheerful disposition, good humour, willingness to share his knowledge and courage against adversity have been an inspiration to me. I wish him well.

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