One man just wheeled into Halifax in a cross-Canada tour to help make polio the world’s second disease totally eradicated by mankind.
Ramesh Ferris is himself a survivor of the viral disease that attacks the muscle and nerve tissue. He became infected as a young child growing up in India. His parents, unable to afford treatment or braces, gave him up for adoption.
That’s how Ferris came to Canada -- specifically the Yukon -- at age two.
“I contracted a disease 25 years after the world had better than a cure — a prevention,” he said. With access to Canadian health care, Ferris was able to walk with a brace by the age of three and a half.
Now Ferris is in Halifax after hand-cycling all the way from Victoria, B.C., since April. When he finishes his journey in Cape Spear, N.L., he’ll have hand-cycled 7,200 kilometres.
“I always focused on the positives in life,” he said. “I focused on the things I could do, rather than what I couldn’t do.”
Polio is on the brink of being the second disease in history wiped out by man, following smallpox in 1979. Polio has no cure but there is an immunization vaccine, however, the highly contagious disease is still a problem in four countries — India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria.
Ferris has the goal of raising $1 million for his Cycle to Walk charity (www.cycletowalk.com). The proceeds go to rotary International and the World Health Organization to fight the disease internationally.
Ferris took on the cause after travelling to India and seeing the crippling effects of the disease.
“We’re 99 per cent there,” said Ferris. “Polio is still an issue in Canada and throughout the world as long as there’s a single case left.”
