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Facing sharp criticisms from all quarters on failure to curb spread of polio in
Uttar Pradesh (UP), the Health Minister Dr Anbumani Ramadoss now says that it “will launch a massive campaign” to “win the battle with the virus.”
Since 1995, the Government has spent Rs. 7,000 crore (USD 152 million) to eradicate the virus but failed to meet deadlines by a large margin which has now been pushed to 2008. Because of the lack of adequate monitoring and reporting mechanism, India now has the dubious reputation of being an exporter of the virus to Bangladesh , Namibia , Nepal , Angola and Democratic Republic of Congo. The UN Secretary General Kofi Annan had written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking for cooperation to stop the virus. In other words, the UN is now holding India responsible for getting other nations into trouble. However, UNICEF and World Health Organization (WHO) say the world may still recover from this re-infection that has spread to 26 nations.
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Ramdoss wants to have “more health workers to vaccinate the children” and “more testing centres” although he did say that there will be “more dissemination of information to drive away the misconception about the polio vaccines.” The problem is that inbuilt biases, suspicion, and misconceptions in people make them avoid the virus and there is no mention of how he plans to fix this fundamental problem. Ramdoss’s approach to resolve the problem is to create more bureaucracies and awareness mechanisms for the Muslims—the community that has the most number of reported cases. He has planned to deploy 40,000 Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) and providing incentives to the vaccinators. Local doctors have already said increased sales campaigns deepen suspicion and creating incentive for vaccinators will only induce them to sell the vaccine more.
Ramdoss who had a joint coordination meeting with Health Ministers from U.P., Haryna, Delhi , Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra , said he will visit Geneva to explain the issue to WHO officials.
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