War on polio could be won soon

India may well be on its way to eradicating polio within a year following new policies that the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has adopted at a WHO meet on polio eradication in Geneva 10 days ago.

India may well be on its way to eradicating polio within a year following new policies that the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has adopted at a WHO meet on polio eradication in Geneva 10 days ago. While the WHO has urged the four polio-suffering countries, Nigeria, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan, to eradicate the deadly-disease in the next 24 months, India says given the level of commitment to the programme, it can be done in 12 months.

Supporting this statement is the fact that the two primary epicenters of polio, Moradabad and JP Nagar in Uttar Pradesh, have not recorded a single case of polio in the last four months. Before September 15, 2006, the two districts had reported 88 cases.

8220;This is a big leap in the immunization process. In polio type 1 we have not seen any cases from Moradabad and JP Nagar, which at one stage were responsible for a majority of the cases. In the next 12 months we would like to have zero cases reported. Only when we report zero cases for three years will the WHO declare us polio-free.8221; said Dr P Biswal, Assistant Commissioner, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Since 2005, the districts in UP and Bihar are being administered the monovalent vaccine MOPV1 which has proven to be more effective than the trivalent vaccine being used in other parts of the country. Type 3 polio is also prevalent in UP and Bihar for which MOPV3 is being administered.

8220;We have reached so far due to the commitment of the state governments in monitoring and ensuring that every child in immunized. Only 6 per cent of the children in UP were not immunized last time. The next round of immunisation are from 11-17 March. If the state governments continue with the same level of commitment we can achieve our target in the next 12 months,8221; said Dr Biswal.