Indian Polio Worker to be Honored in New York

The New York City, next month, is set to witness the United Nations Foundation’s event to honor some of the world’s lesser known people for their extraordinary service to mankind.
Indian Polio Worker to be Honored in New York
An Indian medical volunteer administers oral polio vaccine to a child during a national immunization program in Hyderabad city on February 19, 2012. A woman health official from India will be honored by the United nations Foundation in New York next month for walking several kilometers to administer polio vaccine to poor children in flood prone area. (Noah Seelam/AFP/Getty Images)
10/25/2013
Updated:
10/25/2013

The New York City, next month, is set to witness the United Nations Foundation’s event to honor some of the world’s lesser known people for their extraordinary service to mankind.

Among the chosen ones is an Indian woman health official, Martha Dodray, a nursing midwife from a district in Bihar state who has worked extensively to eradicate polio from the region. She will be sharing the prestigious stage with Pakistani youth icon, Malala Yousufzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban terrorist group for advocating girl education in her country.

“I am happy that UNF (the United Nations Foundation) is honoring me for my work in polio immunization campaign at a function to be held at New York on November 6, where Malala would be also felicitated,” Dodray, a tribal native of Palamu district, told the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS), a private Indian news agency.

Dodray said in the report that she used to walk several kilometers every day to reach remote and inaccessible villages to give polio vaccine to hundreds of children from poor families.

Officials said that she has contributed in the polio vaccination drive even in remote pockets of the flood-prone rural areas.

State Health Secretary Sanjay Kumar told IANS that Bihar has become a near polio-free region and has not recorded a single case of the disease, but the region will have to wait till January next year to be officially declared a polio free state. India too will be declared a polio-free country next year.