M A I N   N E W S

India hopes to be polio-free by 2014
Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service

Rukhsar, the last known polio victim in India, from Howrah, West Bengal. A Tribune photograph

Polio facts

n Last wild polio virus 1 case: January 13, 2011 (Howrah, West Bengal) n Last wild polio virus-3 case: October 22, 2010 (Pakur, Jharkhand) n Last wild polio virus 2 case: October 1999 (Aligarh, UP) n Last polio-positive case came to surface after environmental sampling in November 2010 n Polio drops given to 17.4 crore children in one round

New Delhi, February 23
India is inching closer to the goal of polio eradication and hopes to be free of the deadly viral infection by 2014.

In fact, transmission is at an all-time low, making a strong case for WHO to consider taking India off the list of polio-endemic countries, which also include Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan. “There is a lot of positive evidence of transmission being at an all-time low. Excitement among health managers is palpable. We are waiting to see when the WHO takes us off the endemic nation list,” Additional Secretary, Health Anuradha Gupta said today. She was pointing to the fact that over 90 per cent environmental samples taken from sewage disposal sites across migration hubs of India to determine the presence of the virus in the air had been found to be negative since November 2010.

Meanwhile, government is likely to step up surveillance at airports to rule out chances of cases coming in from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria, where polio is endemic. Thus far, such surveillance is happening only in case of children entering India via rail or road.

Strategies to combat the virus will be discussed at the two-day Polio Summit to be held this weekend. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will open the summit, which will be attended by health ministers of Pakistan and Nigeria.

For India, the challenge is to prevent new polio cases and block imported ones. “We already have surveillance points along borders with Pakistan. These are at Wagah, Attari and in Rajasthan. But we have to create similar surveillance points at airports. Polio can also be imported via air route. We further want to strengthen polio surveillance across borders,” Additional Secretary, Health, Anuradha Gupta said today while briefing reporters about the Polio Summit.

The India Polio Advisory Group, which advises the government on strategy, is meeting on March 16 to flag new challenges.

“There we will raise the issue of surveillance of cases via air route. We will also see if the experts want us to block new entry points along borders,” health officials said.

The summit will celebrate India’s huge polio success - of reduced infection cases, from two lakh annually in 1988 to zero last year. The last child who got wild polio virus 1 was Rukhsar from Howrah. Today, she is a motivator for UNICEF, going door to door, asking parents to get children for polio drops. Rukhsar, infected on January 13, 2011, had never received polio drops.

So far as India’s hopes of eradication go (For WHO's eradication status, nations must be able to remain polio-free for three consecutive years), they are real.

There has been a new case since Rukhsar’s and results of all environmental samplings have been negative since November 2010.

Environmental samples have been taken from sewage disposal sites in four migration hubs of India — Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Patna. This has been done to gauge presence of virus in the air.

In 2009, most Mumbai samples tested positive. But in 2011, all samples across four sites were negative.

This means the virus is not circulating in the environment, Health Ministry officials said.

In 2009, India had reported 741 cases, half of the global burden of polio. But now, it appears on track to be rid of polio.

For the 12th Plan, the Ministry has sought Rs 4,400 crore as against Rs 5,500 crore sought in the previous plan. This because of lesser burden, Gupta explained.

Globally, however, Rotary International projects a deficit of $520 million for the polio eradication initiative.