No of Polio cases go up in Bihar

The worst-affected districts are Samastipur, Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur and Khagaria which share over 42 per cent of the total cases reported this year, health department sources revealed.

The youngest kid to have been contracted by polio was one month old, while the eldest one was slightly over five years old, the sources said.

Though over five pulse polio rounds were carried out in Bihar in the last five months on which Rs 30 crore was spent, the cases of poliomyelitis is on the rise,” the sources said.

According to medical experts, the most agonising part of the polio drive is that though a majority of the affected children were administered around seven doses of polio vaccine, the cases are maintaining a rising trend.

On the other hand, health planners, including some paediatricians involved in the immunization programme, differ on the number of doses required to protect a child.

While some say even 14 doses are not sufficient enough to provide immunity to children, others maintain that the doses were adequate for developing immunity.

Experts, however, feel that either the vaccine was not potent enough to develop immunity among the children or the cold chain was not maintained.

State immunization officer Dr Gopal Krishna, however, disputed the contention of experts, saying there was no possibility of the vaccines losing the potency as utmost care was taken in maintaining the cold chain.

Asserting that the polio scenario in the state was looking up, Dr krishna said the dreaded p-1 virus was on the wane as only one case was reported this year and the number of p-3 cases was also being checked. A total 181 cases of poliomyelitis was reported during the past five months, he said.

The p-1 round of immunization which began on June eight would completely eliminate the p-1 virus and then the state government would concentrate on the next p-3 round in July.

”In the next couple of years we will be able to free the state of polio,” Dr Krishna said. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was closely monitoring the immunization programme and giving instructions from time to time to check the polio cases, official sources said.