On February 25, 2012, the World Health Organization (WHO) removed India from the list of ‘polio-endemic’ countries
The announcement was made after India remained polio-free for one year.
On 27 March 2014, India achieved a monumental milestone by becoming certified polio-free. The last case of polio was reported on 13 January 2011.
Since then, the country has remained free of any case of wild poliovirus. The achievement was unprecedented for a country, which until 2009 accounted for more than half the world’s polio incidence.
Among developing countries, India suffered the most due to polio before the disease started to decline in the 1990s. However, India was also the pioneer-leader in polio research - epidemiology, vaccine-prevention - and in the manufacture of both OPV and IPV.
How India eradicated Polio?
In 1978, India launched the National Immunisation Programme, later renamed the Universal Immunisation Programme in 1985.
The BCG vaccine for tuberculosis, the oral polio vaccine, the diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), and tetanus (DPT) vaccine, as well as the vaccine against typhoid-paratyphoid, were all introduced through the initiative.
The Pulse Polio Programme, India’s polio eradication initiative, was officially inaugurated in December 1995.
At the time, the country was seeing 50,000 to 150,000 cases every year.
India launched an aggressive polio immunisation campaign, including using celebrities to promote the programme and running advertisements in print media and on radio to encourage people to get the vaccine.
A network of health professionals from around the country collaborated to monitor illness outbreaks.
About two million health professionals worked from a network of more than 5,000 stations, visiting millions of households to deliver vaccinations, to make sure the goal of 172 million children was accomplished.
