President administers polio drops to kids at Rashtrapati Bhawan

Speed Post News Network

New Delhi : The President of India Ram Nath Kovind on January 27, 2018, launched the Pulse Polio programme for 2018 by administering polio drops to children less than five years old at the Rahstrapati Bhawan, in the presence of the Union Minister for Health & Family Welfare J P Nadda and Ministers of State (Health) Ashwini Kumar Choubey and  Anupriya Patel here.

The President administered the polio drops on the eve of the National Immunization Day to be observed on January 28. More than 17 crore children of less than five years across the country will be given polio drops as part of the drive of Government of India to sustain polio eradication from the country, according to a PIB release.

Speaking at the function, Nadda said, “We need to remain vigilant and maintain the population immunity and sensitive surveillance till global polio eradication happens as poliovirus is still circulating in other parts of the world which may reinfect us.”  He further stated that the Government is making all the possible efforts to protect children from more and more diseases.

In order to mitigate the risk of poliovirus importation, the immunity against polio infection is maintained through National and Sub-National Polio rounds along with sustained high quality polio surveillance. To provide additional protection to our children, Government of India has also introduced the injectable Inactivated Polio Vaccine (IPV) into its routine immunization programme, Nadda stated.

Nadda pointed out that Universal Immunization Programme (UIP) is focusing to protect children from more diseases than ever before and has introduced several new vaccines like Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine, Rotavirus vaccine, and Measles-Rubella in the recent past. “To further strengthen and accomplish our goals we have launched Mission Indradhanush and encouraged by its success, we have recently intensified the mission in October, 2017, to achieve more than 90% full immunization coverage by 2018,” Nadda added.

Nadda informed that strengthening of immunization programme has significantly contributed to the decline of Infant Mortality Rate from 39 in 2014 to 34 per 1,000 live births in 2016.