About Us

Welcome to UNICEF’s India Polio Learning Exchange website. Our aim is to share the experience of the polio eradication programme in India with remaining polio-endemic and re-established transmission countries, and to document the largest public health campaign in history. Here you’ll find the UNICEF communication strategies and materials that have contributed to a polio-free India - the posters, banners, field books, flip books, micro plans, forms, tables and more, to give a nuts-and-bolts explanation of how the India polio eradication programme works. In the late 1970s India recorded an estimated 200,000 cases of polio each year*. Now it has none. India’s last case was recorded on 13 January 2011, and after one year without recording any cases and with its global-standard disease surveillance levels, India was removed from the list of remaining polio-endemic countries on 25 February 2012. The journey has been long and hard, and many lessons have been learned. While some of those lessons are particular to the Indian context, it is hoped that presenting the programme in this way will be of use. Many well-informed experts did not believe it would be possible to stop polio transmission in India. India’s success shows it can be done, even in the most challenging environments. It is proof that it is not a matter of if global polio eradication will be achieved, but when. *National Polio Surveillance Project, WHO