India Begins Immunization Drive To Gain Control Of Spread Of Polio

In its biggest public health drive in two decades, India plans to immunize 75 million children against polio, a disease that cripples 10,000 Indian children each year.

On Dec. 9 and Jan. 20, families across the nation of 900 million people will be able to bring children younger than 3 to 500,000 immunization centers to receive the oral polio vaccine, the government announced Thursday.

Doctors will be posted with vaccine kits on long-distance trains, at airports, sea ports, railroad and bus stations, schools, hospitals and clinics. Nearly 2 million volunteers and government employees will be involved, the government said.

Although polio has been eradicated in the West and most developed Asian nations, it is widespread in South Asia, where countries have poor health care systems. India accounts for 60 percent of the world’s polio cases reported annually.

Health experts say if the disease is not completely eradicated by the year 2000, it could begin spreading to countries that have been polio-free for years.

Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, countries neighboring India, have already begun similar programs. Mass immunizations, at least twice a year, have to be carried out for three years before the virus can be eliminated.

Next month, posters asking people to immunize their children will be pasted on walls in all cities, towns and each of India’s 650,000 villages. Radio and television will broadcast messages.