India has joined a group of 11 nations that signed the Measles Eradication Pledge of the World Health Organisation (WHO) to eliminate measles and rubella congenital syndrome by 2020, said Dr. Santhosh Rajagopal, Surveillance Medical Officer, WHO here on Sunday.
Speaking to The Hindu , he said the country had to step up its measures to reach out to all children on measles immunisation. Although there was an accepted system of immunisation to the children in general, it had to be strengthened to cover poor children.
Similarly, a section of people, particularly in North India, had been neglecting the immunisation by believing that measles was a God’s gift.
A sustained campaign should be launched to clear the myth of people in order to maximise the coverage of measles immunisation. They should be habituated to medication, Rajagopal said.
On polio eradication, he said that the WHO had established 40,000 reporting units in the country to monitor the prevalence of the disease. They would investigate at least 50,000 paralysed children. They would collect one lakh stool specimens a year to carry out test in eight WHO accredited polio laboratories. Environmental sampling (sewage sample testing) was done in six States with large migrant population. Travellers were subjected to produce polio vaccination certificates at airports and sea ports.
