Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, administers polio vaccine to a child in New Delhi, India. HHS and USAID are among the partners supporting the Government of India’s campaign to eradicate polio.
By Kathleen Sebelius
January 13, 2012
For over 40 years, HHS has supported U.S.-India health collaboration, working on issues ranging from food safety to AIDS outreach and prevention to joint biomedical research on cancer.
Over the last three days in India, I, along with our delegation, have had the opportunity to spend time visiting communities, seeing this beautiful country, and meeting with health care providers, researchers, community leaders, families, and children. And a few hours ago, I saw one of our amazing achievements in action – administering a polio vaccine at a local vaccination site. These vaccination sites are part of a network of health centers that help India vaccinate millions of children against polio each year. I was particularly touched to play a small part in this effort on this day.
That’s because today is exactly one year since the last reported case of polio in India.
This remarkable achievement truly belongs to India. Not only did the country commit more than one billion of its own dollars, but they also committed the time and hard work to beat this disease. Polio eradication has also been a major focus of the U.S.-India health collaboration. Our Centers for Disease Control and Prevention worked side-by-side with India to design and maintain the highly effective national polio surveillance system. CDC disease detectives and laboratory experts are on the ground working with global and local partners to investigate outbreaks and rapidly stop their spread. At CDC headquarters, other polio experts collect and analyze the latest information on eradication progress to help those on the ground adjust strategies to keep our goals on course.
This success also shows the significant impact of strong partnerships. Polio eradication efforts brought together not just other nations such as Japan and Norway, but also NGOs like the Gates Foundation and Rotary International, and multilateral organizations like the World Health Organization and UNICEF. This collaboration is the key to keeping India free of polio for many years to come.
These same partnerships have also helped us make great progress in our collaborative work on influenza-like illness in India, including the ability to detect H1N1 before the outbreak reached India.
Today, these types of collaborations are more necessary than ever.
India faces great challenges in public health, and at the same time has an enormous opportunity to lead in the 21st century. This makes them an invaluable member of the global health partnership among nations.
When President Obama addressed the Indian parliament in 2010, he spoke directly to the Indian people and said: “I want every Indian citizen to know: The United States of America will not simply be cheering you on from the sidelines. We will be right there with you, shoulder to shoulder.”
Together, along with public and private partners from around the globe, we’ve made great strides and I’ve seen some of them first-hand on this trip. We will continue working together to address the critical health care challenges here in India and around the world.