President Ram Nath Kovind today launched the countrywide Pulse Polio Programme for 2021 by administering polio drops to children less than five years old at the Rashtrapati Bhawan. The President and the First Lady Savita Kovind administered polio drops to children on the eve of the Polio National Immunization Day, which is observed tomorrow on Sunday.
The day is also popularly known as Polio Ravivar. Around 17 crore children of less than 5 years of age will be given polio drops as part of the Central Government’s drive to sustain polio free status of the country. The countrywide drive will be supported by about 24 lakh volunteers, 1.5 lakh supervisors and many Civil Society Organisations, World Health Organisation UNICEF and Rotary International. Under the programme, Healthcare workers will be visiting to as many as two crore households to ensure that no child is left without the protection of the polio vaccine.
Speaking at the launch event, Dr. Harsh Vardhan said, that before the start of the pulse polio program, India had 60 per cent caseload of Polio worldwide. He said, with the last case of Polio reported in Howrah on 13th January, 2011, the country has been free of Polio for a decade now.
Dr Vardhan said, Polio-free certification’ of the entire South-East Asia Region of WHO including India on the 27th of March 2014 was a huge accomplishment in the history of India and Global Public Health. However, the Health Minister stressed on the need to remain vigilant and maintain the population immunity against polio with sensitive surveillance till global polio eradication happens. He said, poliovirus is still circulating in other parts of the world including our neighbouring countries which may re-infect us.
He said, Universal Immunization Programme is focusing to protect children from more diseases than ever before and has introduced several new vaccines in the recent past. He said, to provide additional protection to the children, Government of India has also introduced injectable Inactivated Polio Vaccine into its routine immunization program.