Union Health Minister J. P. Nadda on Tuesday, June 2, 2026, highlighted a series of landmark public health achievements, citing India's elimination of polio, maternal and neonatal tetanus, and trachoma as a public health concern, while noting the country's ongoing push for WHO certification on kala-azar elimination.

Context

Posting in Hindi on X, Nadda wrote: 'भारत ने संक्रामक रोगों के नियंत्रण में बड़ी उपलब्धियां हासिल की हैं' ['India has achieved major milestones in the control of infectious diseases']. He enumerated three completed milestones and flagged a fourth in progress, framing them as a sequential public health success story under the current government's stewardship.

The minister noted that India became polio-free in 2014, achieved elimination of neonatal and maternal tetanus in 2015, and in 2024 trachoma ceased to be a public health concern. On kala-azar, he said India is 'moving towards WHO certification for elimination.'

Policy Backdrop

India's polio-free status followed nearly two decades of the Pulse Polio Immunisation Programme, launched in 1995, which deployed mass oral vaccine campaigns twice a year across the country. The programme is widely cited as one of the largest public health mobilisations in history, reaching hundreds of millions of children.

The elimination of maternal and neonatal tetanus in 2015 was achieved through sustained tetanus toxoid vaccination drives targeting women of reproductive age, particularly in high-risk districts. Trachoma control was integrated into the National Programme for Control of Blindness, with intensified surveillance and antibiotic distribution in endemic states eventually meeting the WHO threshold for validation.

The National Kala-azar Elimination Programme, operational since the early 1990s under the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme, has driven incidence of the sandfly-borne disease below the WHO-prescribed elimination benchmark of less than one case per 10,000 population at the sub-district level in endemic areas. Formal WHO certification, however, requires a sustained period of verified low incidence and robust surveillance documentation.

Stakeholders and Impact

The milestones most directly benefit children, mothers, and rural populations in historically endemic regions — particularly the Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Uttar Pradesh belt, which has borne the highest kala-azar burden. State health departments have been central implementing partners across all four disease programmes.

India's sequential elimination pathway — from smallpox eradication in 1977 through polio and tetanus to neglected tropical diseases — reflects the approach outlined in the National Health Policy 2017 and aligns with WHO South-East Asia regional strategies. Each milestone has allowed reallocation of surveillance infrastructure and trained health workers to the next priority disease.

What's Next

The immediate focus is completing the formal WHO certification process for kala-azar elimination, which requires sustained documentation of low incidence alongside verified surveillance capacity. Parliamentary scrutiny of National Health Mission budget allocations for remaining neglected tropical disease targets is also expected to intensify in coming sessions.

If kala-azar certification is secured, India would have achieved elimination or eradication of five major infectious diseases within roughly five decades — a record that would reinforce the country's standing as a reference model for low- and middle-income nations pursuing similar targets under the WHO's neglected tropical disease roadmap through 2030.