This is bigger news than most news stories you'll read this year, or this decade for that matter.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...
The vaccine is totally free and hence reaches even the poorest.
It usually happens in the Jan-Feb time and is combined with TV ads with prominent celebrities endorsing the program, though I don't remember seeing the ads any more.
Management of such programs over the populace of India by itself is worthy of praise. A similar process in India which is under rated is the election process. It is a worthy case study in management for any B school.
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As a high-school student, I remember my entire school participated in the early years of this drive. I remember students being assigned specific areas of my town - groups of three to five, assigned an area consisting of a few blocks of multi-storeyed apartments. Each group was asked to canvass and get names of kids under five years of age in every house in their assigned area.
If you were wondering why any of us would bother to put in an honest shift, the collection of said kids' names was 'gamified' to some extent. Moreover, for us kids, it was simply time away from school, i.e. no lessons, no teachers, just us friends going from door-to-door. Schools would be given points based on the accuracy of data. (I am still not sure how they decided this but that's what we were told anyway. It sure helped to keep the lazy miscreants among us on the straight and narrow.) The data collected by the students would then be handed over to the authorities in charge of the vaccination process, who would then draw up a list of vaccination centers.
One of the more interesting things was broadcasting a single, 'target' date every year for mass vaccinations. The government would broadcast this date (typically the second or third Sunday of January) over various media and also conduct last-mile publicity campaigns with a loudspeaker blaring reminders in every area as the 'target' date came closer.
Bear in mind, these vaccines were usually available at government-run clinics and hospitals on any given day of the year but setting a target date ensured that people allocated time out of their schedules. Furthermore, since the target date was always a Sunday, almost everyone could be convinced to make an appearance. That being said, there was an additional arrangement to ensure that those who didn't/couldn't make it to a center on a target date still wouldn't miss out on that all-important dose of vaccine.
As for us students, our contribution to the process did not stop with the collection of data. Since our school was a center for mass-vaccinations, we were expected to sit at the vaccination booths and cross-check the arriving vaccinees (is that a word? Never mind, it is now...) against the lists we created and ensure that every kid on that list got vaccinated. Think elections, but for vaccination.
Furthermore, we were made to go to their houses with volunteers carrying medicines and ensure that kids who couldn't/hadn't made an appearance yet didn't miss out on the vaccine.
I can't remember if any of these efforts earned us extra points on our annual grades but hey, we were happy enough to get 'school-sanctioned loitering time' on a school-day!
<TL;DR> As a school student, my school ensured that I played a small part in the early days of this campaign. While most of us did it for shits and giggles, it is only now that we realize that we played a small part in the process and can feel proud of putting in an honest shift all those years ago.
Credit must go to the people who designed and executed this campaign ceaselessly over the last twenty years. Their efforts have ensured that no child was, indeed, left behind when it came to administering the all-important drops of the polio vaccine.
https://twitter.com/drharshvardhan
Dr. Harsh Vardhan has keenly taken it to its fruitful conclusion as well.
The initiative to check polio started way back in 1978, with permanently disabled population still available across 5 alive generations. This number is likely to shrink rapidly in the next two decades, provided the polio vaccination program is kept abreast with advancing deadliness of poliovirus [1] and state's ability to maintain free vaccination.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poliovirus
[Edited: Span of generations across which polio afflicted patients could be found is 5 and not 3 as per my original comment.]
Dr.Harsh Vardhan, was a doctor like any other, in Delhi, one of the first three states in India to start the Polio program, meaning it was not his initiative, instead it was his job to be part of it.
What really happened is explained carefully here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2696658/
Polio eradication in India was made possible by so many people one can't really thank them all by name. There are so many volunteers, who have worked on weekends going door to door to educate the parents and deliver the vaccination and they have done it over the years.
There are doctors, nurses, government workers, even Bollywood actors who've done ads for free to spread awareness.
So you can't really thank one person, one government or one organization. This was a national movement which succeeded.
the use of word "started" and the structure "the man" seems invisible to you?
This is a prime example of Pushy Politics, which has been not just used, but over abused by fanatics. Distorting History, and if so much as someone (like me here) points it out... "a man can't make a mistake?" attitude then, makes these people feel invincible.
Thus...I must quote Plato here:
You can forgive a child for staying in darkness, but the real tragedy of life is when men choose to stay away from light.
QUOTE
During his time in the State's Health Ministry, he launched Polio Eradication Plan in October 1994.[6] The programme was successful and was adopted throughout the whole nation by the Government of India.[7]
UNQUOTE
Please do your homework before calling others on the task. And look beyond your own version of reality, it is important. I wouldn't have even replied to you had it not been on HN.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harsh_Vardhan_(Delhi_politician...
You should have checked what your reference is. And now this is not a debate, what I said was not that he was not part of the movement. But Polio campaign was not started by him, is a fact.
Started, is someone who actually launched it on the national scale which would be the then prime minister, but should I also commit the same mistake of naming a politician and giving him all the credit? No I won't, I already said what is the known truth.
Also, if you read my reference (from US National Library Records) you would know, that the first project was launched in Tamil Nadu, then expanded to 3 states.
The reference for this is hidden behind a login screen, which is interesting.
It's a sad way to add a partisan sheen on an achievement that actually belong to the tens of thousands of people who've worked for this over decades.
Here's a better summary of India's efforts by the WHO's representative to India: http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/JD8uPXvircS0rU60AIUvUN/Polio...
http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=30123 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_eradication