Each state in India has prepared individual Emergency Preparedness and Response Plans to enact in the event of a polio case. UNICEF and WHO-National Polio Surveillance Project (NPSP) continue to conduct joint training sessions on the necessary components to the plan, with UNICEF’s emphasis being the requirement for all state governments to produce media, advocacy and IEC plans. The communications component of all state plans is being re-evaluated to ensure the plans are up to date.

UNICEF has produced an extensive emergency kit, to be used in the first two mop up rounds, in seven languages – Hindi, Punjabi, Marathi, Telugu, Gujarati, Oriya and Bengali - for immediate dissemination in the event of a polio case. Each kit contains:

1. 40,000 emergency mop-up notification posters
2. 6,000 FAQs
3. 600 Green religious advocacy booklet Hindi/Urdu
4. 1000 Polio Plus IPC flip books
5. 4 CDs with artwork of undated polio posters
6. 4 CDs with artwork of Polio Plus convergence posters
7. 4 CDs with TV spots
8. 4 CDs with radio spots
9. 20 CDs with mike announcements

After the last lone case of polio in Howrah, West Bengal on 13 January 2011 an aggressive and rapid immunization response was launched. It was in line with the recommendation by the India Expert Advisory Group in November 2010 to respond to each new case of polio as a public health emergency. A large scale mop-up immunization round was launched within seven days of notification of the case and three vaccination rounds were conducted within seven weeks of the case being confirmed.