The government of Japan has agreed to provide a grant assistance of Rs.190 million (456 million yen) for the intensified pulse polio immunisation (IIPI) campaign in India this year, parliament was informed Wednesday.
Answering a question, Health and Family Welfare Minister Anbumani Ramadoss told the Lok Sabha: 'The grant will be utilised for procurement of vaccine through UNICEF to be used during the pulse polio rounds for West Bengal and northeastern states.'Ramadoss said that Japan had been supporting India on this cause since 1996 and the cumulative grant amount provided by the country including current year was Rs. 3 billion (7.4 billion yen).
'The grant is paid directly to the UNICEF-Copenhagen, for procurement of oral polio vaccine,' he added.
The minister also said that his government had allocated Rs.10.49 billion for eradication of polio during 2006-07 by carrying out four national and four sub-national immunisation days during the period.
He also said that the World Health Organisation (WHO) provides technical assistance to the government to eradicate the disease from the country through the national polio surveillance project.
'However, no financial assistance is being given by the WHO towards polio eradication programme,' he added.
Advertisement
