New Delhi: In a bid to provide the cooperation in helping eradicate polio from that country, Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan has offered the Government of Pakistan to help in this regard. Pakistan today accounts for 85 percent of the world’s polio cases today, a cause for concern for India, her immediate neighbour to the east.
On the occasion of the World Polio Day, Dr Harsh Vardhan welcomed Pakistan Prime Minister, Mr Nawaz Sharif’s recent declaration of adoption of a “National Emergency Action Plan-2014”. The programme will be fully State funded till 2018.
“I have been through the plan and find that the script is perfect. Pakistan has resolved to set up monitoring cells at the grassroots level. They are also talking of involving social groups, a strategy which worked wonderfully in India,” the Minister said.
India’s social mobilisation network for the fight against polio, which was originally conceived in Delhi in 1994 when Dr Harsh Vardhan was Health Minister of the state, has been lauded by all international organisations including World Health Organisation, UNICEF, Rotary International and United States Centre for Disease Control.
Dr Harsh Vardhan noted, “This particular model would stand Pakistan in good stead in her own anti-Polio drive. Unless all stakeholders in society, most importantly in Pakistan’s context her religious clergy, are involved, it would be impossible to achieve total polio eradication.”
Recalling the Joint Statement issued at the end of the Foreign Minister-level talks in September 2012, Dr Harsh Vardhan pointed out that the two countries had already talked of institutionalising cooperation on polio eradication through the mechanism of a Joint Working Group. There is also a technical level working group in the area of Health cooperation.
However, there was no significant progress on this front. India achieved full freedom from polio in January 2014 due to the fact that not a single new case had been detected since January 2011.
Dr NataMenabde, WHO’s Representative in India, said on the occasion, “We are using the lessons learnt from polio eradication to strengthen routine immunisation in India. The polio infrastructure is now also being used for other health interventions, especially to protect our children from vaccine-preventable and other diseases.”
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