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People who refused the vaccine were motivated by political and religious leaders... American business magnate and philanthropist Bill Gates, the founder-chairman of Microsoft, is all set to eradicate polio from the face of the earth. Although Gates feels that the eradication of the disease is one of the hardest targets to achieve, he believes it is completely achievable and may even be possible by the end of 2013. Speaking to Congress members in Washington, Gates commended India for eradicating the dreaded disease in India, thanks to social mobilisation and mapping of houses refusing the vaccine. According to Gates, India performed very well in the areas of social mobilisation and the mapping of the houses that refused to be administered the polio vaccine. Gates, for whom global health is top priority, said that rumours such as the US government was trying to sterilise Muslim women by administering the vaccine contributed towards much higher refusals than the usual 10-20 per cent. India mapped these houses and sent across political or religious leaders to convince them of the benefits of the vaccine. The Bill Gates Foundation used the same strategy to cut down the childhood death rate due to diarrhoea, respiratory disease and malaria, which according to Gates were all vaccine preventable stuff, by over 50 percent, in some places in India. This the foundation did by just training the mother. This was not easy Gates agreed, as the person who would do the convincing had to speak the same language or belong to the same caste. The people needed to relate to them so that they would trust the advice being given. With 3,60,000 children being paralysed due to polio every year, the WHO flagged off the polio eradication mission around the world in 1988. The number of cases globally was brought down to below 10,000 by 2000, and stayed at that number from 2000 to 2010. India was approached in 2011 and was expected to be the most difficult to tackle. But, India launched the social mobilisation drive which has almost completely eradicated the disease from its soil. In the last decade, all polio communities joined hands together to successfully reduce the number of polio cases in India. It is hoped that India will be polio-free by 2013. Many private organisations in India have also participated in the same mission to eradicate the disease from the country. Sahara India is one of them, which has significantly contributed towards the eradication of polio in India. Sahara Welfare Foundation, in association with the National Programme of Polio Immunization, has been participating in the Pulse Polio immunisation programme since 1997. As per sources, more than 2 lakh Indian children have been vaccinated so far. Article Source: http://www.nayinews.com/article.aspx?article_id=170
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American, Bill Gates, Washington, social, mobilisation, mapping, polio, vaccine, WHO, Sahara Welfare Foundation, Sahara-India-Pariwar,
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