Good news: India victorious over polio
- Created on Monday, 20 February 2012 21:09
India has managed to bring down the number of cases of polio from as many as 32,000 in 1995 to zero as of January 2011.
If no new cases develop during 2012, the disease will have been officially eradicated.
The government launched a serious campaign in 1999 to halt polio cases. It has been helped by international health charities and groups such as Rotary whose volunteers, including many from Britain, have helped distribute the vaccines.
To help reach "polio-free" status by January 2013 officials and volunteers are staging "National Immunisation Days" around the country to immunise more than 170 million children under five - around 15% of India's population.
The last ten years have witnessed an enormous effort to reach millions of children at risk, despite resistance to immunisation in some regions. Those who were not so fortunate can be seen with misshapen limbs, often begging in India’s main cities.
