children should be considered pressing issues by the Island's Rotary clubs.

That was the message expressed yesterday by two guest speakers at the Hamilton Rotary Club's weekly luncheon.

And district New York Rotary Governor Charles Katze explained that while project Polio Plus has achieved successful results, it still has a long way to go.

Polio Plus has given New York Rotarians the opportunity to travel to Africa to assist with the inoculation and vaccination of the continent's children, Mr.

Katze said.

He added: "Prior to 1988, there were 500,000 polio cases among (African) children every year of which 50,000 died and sadly many of these poor young children have to crawl for the rest of their lives.'' Mr. Katze pointed out that the number of reported cases of polio has dramatically declined during recent years.

"Such work has helped to reduce the number to 4,000, but that is still too high,'' he said. "If inoculation and vaccination efforts continue it will help to eradicate this disease.'' Also promoting a programme designed to assist needy children was Daniel Nalven of New York's Eastchester Rotary Club.

"The Gift of Life Club brings Third World children to America for open-heart surgery at participating hospitals,'' Mr. Nalven said.

"I am here to spread the word throughout Bermuda's Rotary clubs to show how good this programme is.''