India is nearly free of deadly paralyzing viral infection polio. Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad says the WHO removed India from the list Saturday after the country passed one year without registering any new cases. This means only three countries with endemic polio — Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan. India must pass another two years without new cases to be declared polio-free.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh praised some 230,000 volunteers who traveled across India to vaccinate children and said India's success against polio “shows that teamwork pays.”
India was considered the final frontier where the battle against the wild polio virus would either be won or lost. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar was the epicentre of the polio outbreak. In 1985, India reported 150,000 cases, and as recently as 2009, the government was struggling to control the outbreak with 741 cases, more than any other country in the world.
“I was a disbeliever. I always thought India would be the last country to eradicate polio because of the sheer size of the population. What India has done has set a gold standard for polio-endemic countries. If every country follows the model set by the Indian government, we will soon achieve global eradication of the virus,” said William Boyd, chairman of the Rotary Foundation, which partnered with the Indian government in the polio campaign, along with WHO, Gates Foundation and UNICEF.
Announcing his ministry’s intent of observing 2012 as the year of intensification of immunization, Azad said that the lessons from the polio programme could be used to combat other dreaded diseases.
“The government showed unflinching political commitment and emphasized on innovation in implementation of the campaign. We had to rope in religious leaders and opinion makers when we faced resistance from communities. Similarly, transit and migrant strategies were adopted to enhance coverage,” health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said at the summit.
Since its launch in 1995, the national immunization day (NID), or Polio Ravivar or Polio Sundays, became one of the most successful government intervention in public health. During each NID, the government reached 172 million children with help from 2.5 million volunteers. Even families in transit were targeted by health workers reaching out to construction sites, bus and train stations.
India still needs two polio free years to make it. “I would like to emphasize that strengthening routine immunization is an imperative if we wish to sustain our gains in polio and guard ourselves against international importations,” said Azad.
At a two-day World Polio Summit in New Delhi, Azad said, “Emboldened by our progress in the eradication of polio, we are confident that we can achieve elimination of measles-related child deaths. We also now wish to completely eliminate neonatal tetanus in India, and are moving towards it. Some of our learnings and lessons from the polio programme could prove to be extremely useful in accomplishing these tasks.” Azad added that his ministry intends to accelerate routine immunization activities from April 1, with a special focus on 207 districts recording low routine immunization coverage.
He said 26 million mothers and children have already been registered under the web-enabled mother and child tracking system set up by the ministry. The system generates weekly work plans for auxiliary nurse midwives through SMSes. Alerts are also sent to beneficiaries to remind them of the date of the due health services.
“We have a lot to learn from this campaign. This success is a boost for our health workers and we are hoping that, if the same commitment is applied to other health campaigns like measles vaccination we will be on our way to achieve the millennium development goals,” said health secretary P.K. Pradhan.
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