New Delhi: India has been bestowed with the prestigious ‘Measles and Rubella Champion Award’ by the Measles and Rubella Partnership at the American Red Cross Headquarters in Washington, DC, US in recognition of the country’s tireless efforts to combat these diseases.
The award was received on March 6th. Ambassador Sripriya Ranganathan, Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of India, Washington, DC, received the award on behalf of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.
As per a Ministry of Health and Family Welfare press release,
The Measles and Rubella Partnership comprises a multi-agency planning committee, including the American Red Cross, BMGF, GAVI, US CDC, UNF, UNICEF, and WHO, all dedicated to reducing global measles deaths and preventing rubella illness.
This accolade celebrates India’s unwavering commitment to public health and its outstanding leadership in curbing the spread of these infectious diseases among children.
It further recognizes India for providing regional leadership to the measles & rubella elimination programme by using ‘measles as a tracer’ to strengthen routine immunization under the country’s Universal Immunization Programme (UIP). The release stated,
Despite facing numerous challenges, India has demonstrated remarkable progress in reducing measles and rubella cases and preventing outbreaks through a series of comprehensive interventions.
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The Government of India’s proactive MR vaccination campaign in high-risk areas and innovative strategies to reach underserved populations, robust surveillance systems, and effective public-awareness initiatives have played a key role in safeguarding the health and well-being of its population.
As per the release,
The award is a testament to the dedication and hard work of the country’s frontline health workers, healthcare professionals, policymakers, and communities across the nation. These efforts have resulted in 50 districts consistently not witnessing any measles cases, while 226 districts have not reported rubella cases over the past 12 months.
Measles and Rubella are vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs) and MR Vaccine has been part of India’s Universal Immunization Programme since 2017. The government of India is working towards eliminating measles and rubella from the country.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
NDTV – Dettol have been working towards a clean and healthy India since 2014 via the Banega Swachh India initiative, which in its Season 10 is helmed by Campaign Ambassador Ayushmann Khurrana. The campaign aims to highlight the inter-dependency of humans and the environment, and of humans on one another with the focus on One Health, One Planet, One Future – Leaving No One Behind. It stresses on the need to take care of, and consider, everyone’s health in India – especially vulnerable communities – the LGBTQ population, indigenous people, India’s different tribes, ethnic and linguistic minorities, people with disabilities, migrants, geographically remote populations, gender and sexual minorities. In a world post COVID-19 pandemic, the need for WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) is reaffirmed as handwashing is one of the ways to prevent Coronavirus infection and other diseases. The campaign will continue to raise awareness on the same along with focussing on the importance of nutrition and healthcare for women and children, fight malnutrition, mental well-being, self-care, science and health, adolescent health & gender awareness. Along with the health of people, the campaign has realised the need to also take care of the health of the eco-system. Our environment is fragile due to human activity, which is not only over-exploiting available resources, but also generating immense pollution as a result of using and extracting those resources. The imbalance has also led to immense biodiversity loss that has caused one of the biggest threats to human survival – climate change. It has now been described as a “code red for humanity.” The campaign will continue to cover issues like air pollution, waste management, plastic ban, manual scavenging and sanitation workers and menstrual hygiene. Banega Swasth India will also be taking forward the dream of Swasth Bharat, the campaign feels that only a Swachh or clean India where toilets are used and open defecation free (ODF) status achieved as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, can eradicate diseases like diahorrea and the country can become a Swasth or healthy India.
