Arunachal Pradesh Health and Family Welfare Minister Hari Notung urged the Health officials to participate "whole heartedly" in the Centre’s vaccination programme for eradicating polio from the country. Addressing a workshop on "Intensified Pulse Polio Immunisation Programme (IPPI)", Notung said the need of the hour was a sustainable strategy for state immunization programmes.

He said 18.33 per cent of the State’s population were among the age group from zero to six years, amounting to nearly 2.5 lakh children. "Since this population still needs parents’ and society’s protection and is biologically not capable of fighting the diseases, it is much more prone to being affected by all diseases, specially the infectious ones," he said.

"These diseases account for 21 per cent of child mortality," he informed and added that the Centre and the States have launched the Immunisation Streng-thening Project (ISP) with financial assistance from the World Bank with effect from March, 2000.

The overall objective of the ISP was to eradicate polio and reduction of vaccine preventable diseases, he said and added that sectored cooperation it was ISP’s essential component. "We should know about the programme cost, the major components of these costs and how to implement the programmes effectively," he stressed.