Polio virus absent for over 7 weeks

The achievement is significant given that India has been blamed for exporting the virus to many countries with the recent addition being Tajikistan.

Project manager of WHO National Polio Surveillance Project (NPSP),India,Hamid Jafari said: “There has been no case of wild poliovirus in the country for the last seven weeks. What is significant is that it is for the first time there has been no case of type 1 polio in UP and Bihar simultaneously for such a long time.”

Behind this achievement,health experts see the role of the newly introduced bivalent polio vaccine. Asked about its success,Jafari said: “BoPV seems to be building on the strong progress and foundation laid by MopV 1. It seems to be effective in curtailing the transmission of type 1 and 3.”

“Bivalent,which has two types of existing viruses,could be one of the reasons for this achievement,but it has been just three months since its introduction. We would like to wait and watch for a few more months,” said Ajay Saxena,convenor of Rotary’s polio plus programme.

There have been instances when UP was able to control the spread of either type 1 or type 3 wild poliovirus and its epicentre district,Moradabad,not reporting any type 1 virus for over six months in 2008. However,each time outbreak in other parts of the state or Bihar re-infected the rest of the sensitive regions.

Regional in-charge of NPSP Dr S K Pathyarch said: “Six weeks break in poliovirus circulation across the country is certainly good news. An addition to it is that UP has not reported a single WPV-1 case for the last five months.”

In UP,the bivalent vaccine was introduced in 23 districts of western UP in February. Happy with the response,the Central government plans to introduce the vaccine for the first time in eastern and central UP during the May 23 round of pulse polio immunisation programme.

Polio figures
* Total polio cases in India in 2010 so far: 19
* Uttar Pradesh: 9 cases; all type 3
* Bihar: 6 cases,all type 3
* Haryana: 1 case,type 3
* J&K,Maharashtra,West Bengal: 1 case each,type 1
* The last case was reported in February in Jammu and Kashmir