Social mobilization for cholera prevention & control in India: Building on the existing framework

Abstract

Social mobilization is an important component of the delivery of vaccines and has to be carried out at different levels. It plays a very critical role in success of a campaign, as was shown by the Polio eradication program in India that was supported by SMNet, a platform created for the purpose. Learnings from this has been used for other vaccine deployments in India as well. In addition, there is a social mobilization effort for routine immunization. A guideline for social mobilization was created by UNICEF specifically for cholera vaccine use during Haiti epidemic in 2010. Since there is a need to develop a roadmap for cholera control in India, especially in the known hotspots, and after natural disasters, we suggest a possible strategy that could be built on the existing framework available in India.

Keywords: Cholera prevention; Communications; Existing framework; Social mobilisation.