President Pranab Mukherjee launched the Pulse Polio Programme for 2015 by administering polio drops to children under five at Rahstrapati Bhavan on Saturday.
Around 174 million children under five years across the country will be administered polio drops as part of the polio eradication campaign on Monday which is National Immunisation Day.
Union Health and Family Welfare Minister J. P. Nadda said the sustained hard work of nearly 23 lakh volunteers and 1.5 lakh supervisors along with donor partners for eradicating polio from India had resulted in the country being declared polio-free.
There has been no case of wild polio since January 2011 in India, which was certified polio-free last year.
The Minister said the introduction of inactivated polio vaccine in routine immunisation programme and a switch from trivalent OPV to bivalent OPV six months later would be carried out in a synchronised manner globally.
He said efforts to keep the country polio-free were being sustained. “A travel advisory has also been issued as per WHO guidelines to vaccinate all travellers who are travelling between India and eight polio-infected countries comprising Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Cameroon, Syria, Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya” he said.
