New Delhi: Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Ashwini Choubey, who is representing India at the Global Vaccination Summit 2019 at Brussels in Belgium, said that was a need to create better awareness about benefits of vaccines in an effort to save millions of lives across the world.
Choubey, while speaking at the summit that has been organised by the World Health Organization (WHO) and European Commission, on Friday said, “Vaccination does not just protect the individual, it also protects the society as a whole. It’s a humane act and we all need to come together to forge a strong political will to stop spreading misinformation about vaccines.”
The summit is designed to stimulate worldwide action to combat the spread of misinformation on anti-vaccination, raise global awareness about the benefits of vaccines and promote social and political measures to arrest the spread of diseases which are preventable.
Later, Choubey also met Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of WHO, and apprised him of the health programmes that the Indian government is carrying out in India.
“The minister also apprised the participants of the summit of the vaccination programme that the ministry is executing, including the introduction of six new vaccines (Tetanus, Diphtheria, Rubella, Rotavirus, Measles and another related to Polio) that has been introduced by the government in the last five years. Under mission Rainbow that was launched in December 2014, 3.39 crore infants and 87.18 pregnant women have been vaccinated,” a ministry official told The Sunday Guardian.
This one-day high profile event brought together around 400 people, including political leaders, officials from the UN and other international organisations, leading academics, scientists, health professionals and representatives from the private sector and NGOs.