By IANS
New Delhi : The Rotary International has given a grant of $5.65 million to the Unicef and the World Health Organisation (WHO) to help India contain the polio menace. India has reported 844 cases in 2007 against 676 cases the previous year.
The global children’s organisation Wednesday said it has received $3 million from Rotary and the fund would be utilised in carrying out an “extensive communication strategy in support of the national polio eradication programme in India”.
The grant would be utilised for social mobilisation activities focused at more than 4,300 high-risk communities in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
“This tremendous support comes at a crucial time for the polio eradication effort,” said Gianni Murzi, Unicef Representative in India.
“It allows us to continue our intensive effort to engage with families around the need to protect every child against this disease by ensuring they receive oral polio vaccines.” Murzi said.
He expressed confidence that with support from Rotary, and other partners such as USAID, DFID and the government of Canada, Unicef would be able to ensure strong communication support to the national and state governments throughout 2008.
In 2007, Bihar surpassed Uttar Pradesh in the number of polio cases. While Bihar reported 477 cases last year as against 61 cases in 2006, Uttar Pradesh showed a remarkable progress by reporting 337 cases as against nearly 600 cases in 2006.
The current grant comes on top of another $3 million grant awarded to Unicef in November 2007 for polio communication activities this year, said Alka Gupta, a communication officer with Unicef.
Rotary International also extended $2.65 million grant to WHO, which will be used to support high-quality surveillance for polioviruses by its National Polio Surveillance Project – India, the UN body said.
WHO representative to India Salim Habayeb said: “Good quality surveillance for communicable childhood diseases, most notably including polio, is central to the success of India’s development efforts and its national programmes under the overall umbrella of the government’s commendable National Rural Health Mission.”
“Rotary International is a cherished partner and its generous funding to WHO’s technical support will ensure the continuation of high-quality surveillance and the sustainability of technical assistance and capacity-building provided by WHO to confront preventable childhood diseases in India,” he added.
Deepak Kapur, Chairman, India National Polio-Plus Committee of Rotary International, said that intensifying communication efforts now is critical to breaking virus transmission.
“We have made unprecedented progress in the last few months in stopping the transmission of Type 1 (most virulent form of virus) polio in parts of Uttar Pradesh that had never been polio-free.
“Now is the time to step up the momentum to get polio out of India forever. Communication is necessary in getting families to understand the benefits of immunization and is a critical piece of the overall strategy to make that happen. This investment with UNICEF will help us get to our goal faster,” he said.
Among other initiatives, this fund, the Unicef said, will help it deploy 4,045 community mobilisers in 40 districts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. It will also seek the experts’ help to ward off religious reservation on polio immunisation drive and carry out education, information and communication campaigns there.