”Vi må ikke glemme de fattigste og dem, der er sværst at nå ud til. En aktiv fattigdomspolitik kan redde liv.” Det sagde UNICEFs administrende direktør Anthony Lake sagde under et besøg i den indiske landsby Rampur Ratnakar
RAMPUR RATNAKER, India, 7 December 2010: UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake visited the Indian state of Bihar Tuesday and administered oral polio vaccine to babies brought by their families to be immunized during Village Health and Nutrition Day, which offers integrated health services to villagers once a month.
Routine immunization coverage is critical for children to have adequate immunity against polio and other childhood diseases.
“We can save more lives, not by forgetting the poorest people and the hardest to reach places, but by focusing investment directly upon them,” said Lake. “India is in the process of proving that such an equity focus is not only right in principle, it is right in practice – providing returns in the poorest areas.”
Immunization campaigns
In 2009, more than 1.600 children were affected by polio globally, 741 of them in India. Of those cases, 719 were children from the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
The Polio Partnership in India is led by the government, with support from the World Health Organization’s National Polio Surveillance Project, Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and UNICEF, with significant contributions by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The partnership works with health workers, civil society groups and local communities to make sure every child under the age of five is immunized against polio.
