India Communication Update: Special Edition on the 107 Block Plan

India Communication Update is produced monthly by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) India in consultation with partners and is circulated by email as a PDF document. This particular edition highlights the strategic vision of the 107 Block Plan, which is a holistic and multi-pronged approach to address the challenges in the 107 blocks of India's two polio-endemic states (Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar), as well as how the communication effort is supporting implementation in the field. The strategy is motivated by commitments such as that expressed by the Government of India, which - as the Deputy Commissioner (Immunization) states here - is committed to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) and to ensuring that India is polio-free.

As detailed here, the 107 Block Plan is focused on ensuring maximum oral polio vaccine (OPV) vaccination coverage during each polio immunisation activity. Children and young people play a critical role in community mobilisation.

In one interview that is included in this resource - that with the Project Manager, World Health Organization (WHO)/National Polio Surveillance Project (NPSP) - the 107 block strategy aims at focusing all efforts to ensure high-quality oral polio vaccine (OPV) campaigns in the high-risk blocks and at the same time rapidly improving routine immunisation (RI) and prevention and control of diarrhoea through sanitation, availability of clean water, and hygienic practices. NPSP is supporting the local authorities in implementing the strategy, in part by offering management trainings and technical briefings on RI and 107 block plan strategies for surveillance medical officers (SMOs) to enhance their skills.

Another interview, with the Chairman of Rotary International's India Polio Plus Committee, notes that task forces have been established in both states to initiate the plan; also Rotary has proactively put together two additional task forces to cover West Bengal and Punjab in the wake of emerging polio threats and cases in these states. Rotary has appointed 47 Rotary Polio Block Coordinators in 66 blocks of UP and has assigned 2 Rotarians per block in the 36 blocks in Bihar. These personnel, having recently received training, are providing support for OPV and RI, diarrhoea management, and converting resistant families. Other strategies Rotary is pursing include: building political will and momentum (by, for example, visiting a Rotary-supported health camp in Kusumpur slum, Delhi) and keeping up the morale of the health worker in the field by providing motivating incentives like utility kits and recognition for service in the form of Rotary "Appreciation Certificates".

Also described here is a new system developed by UNICEF and the CORE Group for communication monitoring, which has been initiated and fast-tracked first for the high-risk blocks of UP. The one-page communication profiles are generated and posted online after each supplementary immunisation activity (SIA) and are reviewed together with polio case data and operational data in order to relate communication issues to epidemiological and other health challenges that may impact the eradication effort. (Click here to download UP high-risk district profiles for the second quarter of 2010; click here to download UP high-risk block profiles for that same time period.)

Contents of the resource include:

• Polio Eradication: A Priority on the Government's Public Health Agenda
• The Battleground for Eradication: Finishing Polio in the 66 Highest Risk Blocks of UP
• Rotary Builds Support and Political Momentum in Polio High Risk Blocks: Interview with Deepak Kapur, Chairman Rotary International's India Polio Plus Committee
• India Unites to End Polio Now: Partnering with the Private Sector to Expand Polio Messaging and Outreach
• UNICEF's Communication Strategy to Promote Healthy, Polio-free Children: Interview with Karin Hulshof, Representative UNICEF India
• Mobilising Nomads for OPV in Ghaziabad
• Targeted Risk Reduction Strategies: The Key to Polio Eradication in India - An interview with Dr. Hamid Jafari, Project Manager, WHO-NPSP
• Progress in Convergent Activities under the 41 High Risk Block Plan in Bihar
• Washing Hands to Prevent Polio Transmission in Uttar Pradesh
• Sharpening Communication Interventions with Data: Monitoring community engagement in the 107 Blocks

Click here to download the full resource in PDF format.