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India could be free of polio by 2009
In 2003, Uttar
Pradesh accounted for more than 88 per cent of the world’s current polio cases.
And today, India remains one of only five polio endemic countries in the world.
Yet the more recent success of the national polio eradication programme, supported by DFID since 1996, means that India is well on-track to end transmission of the virus by early 2006 and eradicate it entirely by 2009.
How? DFID is supporting UNICEF to lead a large-scale Social Mobilisation Network (SMNet) programme in Uttar Pradesh (UP), promoting behavioural change to increase polio immunisation coverage in children under 5 years in the few remaining pockets of the state where transmission of the virus continues.
The results have been impressive. Through SMNet’s mass mobilisation campaign, approximately 38.5 million children under five are vaccinated across the state in each immunisation round. And from the 1600 cases of polio recorded across 159 districts in India in 2002, the disease was restricted to just 134 cases in 43 districts by 2004.
Monitoring data indicates that in areas where the SMNet is active, far more children are immunised at booths and far fewer children are missed during house to house immunisation rounds than in areas where there are no dedicated community mobilisers.
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Polio
Eradication Initiative - Press release: £60 million boost to eradicate polio (June, 2005)
Mobilising the community
On
the face of it, Noorjehan, a mother in her mid-fifties, is like any other woman
of her community in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh. She has four
children, and has a relatively comfortable life in what is largely an
under-developed area. But what distinguishes her is her mission: to help
eradicate polio from her community.
Noorjehan spends her resources rather unusually – on raising money to help increase awareness about polio. She travels across villages in a hired jeep educating people about the immunisation plus programme. Being illiterate herself, Noorjehan pays a young man to help her complete paperwork related to polio.
Her face breaks into a proud smile when she says, “I have freed 14 immunisation-resistant villages in this district. Everyone in the area knows me. I love my work.”
Noorjehan is one of UNICEF’s 3,000 community mobilisers working to free the state of Uttar Pradesh from polio. They know that if Uttar Pradesh does not increase routine immunisation coverage and eradicate polio, then India cannot eradicate polio.
More about the
mobilisation campaign (Unicef, June 2005)
Key facts
- India is DFID’s largest country programme. DFID is the largest bilateral donor to the Government of India’s national polio eradication programm, and has supported India's work on polio since 1996. We have committed approximately £120 million since 2000 and £20.9 million has been allocated to Uttar Pradesh alone for 2006/07
- SMNet is targeted at the hard to reach and underserved communities still resistant to the vaccination programme, this intervention is the cornerstone of the Information, Education and Communication strategy supporting the polio eradication effort in UP
- SMNet has 3500 members including women, children, religious leaders and celebrities who seek to raise awareness of, and create sustained demand for, immunisation in their villages
- DFID's support (2000-2005) has been channelled through:
- The Government of India, to support training, procurement, logistics and monitoring of the national Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI) (£96 million)
- Technical assistance to the PEI through the World Health Organisation-supported Polio Surveillance Systems (£17 million)
- UNICEF’s Social Mobilisation Network (£8 million).