IMMUNISATION PROGRAMME FOR
POLIO ERADICATION LAUNCHED
The President, Dr.
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam today launched the Sub-National Immunisation
Day (SNID) by administering polio vaccine to children. SNID for
polio eradication is being launched in the States of U.P., Bihar,
Delhi and parts of Haryana, West Bengal and Maharashtra.
On the occasion,
Union Minister for Health & Family Welfare, Shri Shatrughan
Sinha said that in India, we are getting increasingly closer to
the goal of polio eradication. As compared to last year, most
of the States have not reported any polio incidence at all. The
only worrying fact now is the continued and wide spread incidence
of polio in UP and to a lesser extent, in Bihar, Delhi and parts
of West Bengal, Haryana and Maharashtra. The Minister said that
the polio cases in UP, Bihar and in the slums of Mumbai and Delhi
and Murshidabad district in West Bengal is specially targeting
and crippling poor under privileged children.
The Minister assured
full support of the Government to the States in reaching "zero
incidence" level of polio cases, so that India’s Global commitment
of polio eradication by 2005 is achieved. He said that polio eradication
is an outstanding example of international cooperation as also
a truly spontaneous inter-sectoral effort within the country in
which every section of the community participates.
The SNIDs on 29 September
2002 will be followed by intensive house-to-house search and vaccination
of missed children. This SNID will be followed by another SNID
in November and thereafter two National Immunisation Days will
be conducted all over the country in January and February 2003.
