From 1,600 cases in 2002 to just eight polio cases reported from January till mid-May this year, India has come a long way. And this is not the end of the story. For the past three months, not a single case has been reported from any part of the country. The last case of the disease was detected on March 3. Experts say this figure of eight is the lowest ever. Even the traditional reservoirs — Uttar Pradesh and Bihar — have recorded an all time low with one and four cases respectively. Delhi, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh reported a case each.‘‘In 2002 India comprised more than 60 per cent of the total polio cases in the world. Till May this year, with just eight cases out of 185 reported across the world, we don’t even contribute five per cent,’’ said Dr Sobhan Sarkar, WHO consultant and former in-charge of the pulse polio programme. While Nigeria leads the table with 133 cases, Pakistan and Niger follow with 12 cases each. India is fourth on the list according to the data released by the WHO on May 18. ‘‘Compared to our population, the figures are very less,’’ said Dr Sarkar. With the peak polio season approaching, doctors are keeping their fingers crossed. ‘‘The peak season begins July and continues till September. But we get a fairly good idea about the trend in the first two months of the year,’’ said Sarkar. Out of the 225 cases reported last year, 51 were reported in January alone. ‘‘By May, the number had touched 85 then,’’ he added.The pulse polio rounds to be conducted in June and July would have a lot of significance in the future of the programme, he said. ‘‘We can’t afford to relax at this stage and have to improve both our routine immunisation as well as the pulse polio rounds,’’ added Sarkar.
