Rotary Polio Plus Committee of District 3291 shall bring out 16 rallies across different parts of Kolkata and South Bengal to observe National Immunization Day on Sunday 3rd March 2024. The rallies aim to create awareness about the need to keep India polio free and immunize children of the age group of 6 months to 8 years. After quite a few years, Govt of India alongwith all other stake holders are organizing a National Immunization Day across India and this gains a lot of importance as it is believed that any laxity or drop of guard may result in recurrence of polio in India which has been free from Polio since 2014.
Only two countries in the world are still polio stricken, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The rallies will cover Chowrenghee, Hzra, Jagat Bandhu Park, Shyambazar, Rajabazar, Salt Lake, Garden Reach, Barrackpore, Barasat, Chandanagore, Hooghly, Contai,Jhargram, Midnapore, Purulia and Port Blair.
Rotary International has been working to eradicate Polio for more than 35 years and contributed more than US $2.1 billion and countless volunteer hours to protect nearly 3 billion children in 122 countries from this paralyzing disease. Rotary’s advocacy efforts have played a role in decisions by governments to contribute more than $10 billion to the effort.
Today, polio remains endemic only in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But it’s crucial to continue working to keep other countries polio-free. If all eradication efforts stopped today, within 10 years, polio could paralyze as many as 200,000 children each year.
Rotary launched PolioPlus in 1985 and was a founding member of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988.
National Immunization Day (NID) commonly known as Pulse Polio Immunization programme was launched in India in 1995, and is conducted twice in early part of each year. Additionally, multiple rounds (at least two) of sub national immunization day (SNID) have been conducted over the years in high risk states/areas. In these campaigns, children in the age group of 0-5 years are administered polio drops. Over 170 million children are immunized during each NID and 77 million in SNID. Surveillance for detection of polio virus transmission is being done through acute flaccid paralysis (AFP Surveillance) with laboratory network since 1997. Oral polio drops being provided to all children less than five years of age in routine immunization programme.