India launches campaign to wipe out polio

Indian health authorities today launched one of the largest-ever immunisation drives in the world to protect an estimated 165 million children from polio.

More than 1.3 million public health workers, teachers and volunteers, carrying nearly 200 million doses of the anti-polio vaccine, fanned out to remote villages and urban slums where the virus is easily spread due to crowded conditions, poor sanitation and hard-to-reach communities.