India set to be free of polio by 2014

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Finally, good news on the health front.

Next year will be crucial for India’s polio eradication programme, which appears on track with only one case reported so far this year.

According to an article in the recent issue of the journal by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “If no wild polio virus is identified throughout the high-transmission season in 2012, India will be regarded as polio-free.”

According to experts, this would put the World Health Organisation South-East Asia Region, of which India is a member, on track to be certified polio-free as early as 2014.

HURDLES AHEAD

However, the article says that despite the absence of WPV cases in India since January 2011, the risk remains for WPV circulation among migrant populations and residents of high-risk areas in western Uttar Pradesh and central Bihar and in migrant populations in other states.

“In West Bengal, families within certain migrant populations continue to have higher proportions of undervaccinated children than families in migrant populations and the general population aged less than two years in other states,” it said.

Experts say even as India has served as a reservoir for importation to neighbouring countries and some distant countries, the country also is at risk for WPV importations from other polio-affected areas. “The recent polio outbreak in neighbouring China resulting from WPV importation from Pakistan is a reminder of the need for continued vigilance to ensure high population immunity in all states (with specific focus on migrant populations),” it added further.

Lauding its efforts on eradication of polio, experts said that "elimination of WPV in India will establish that WPV transmission can be interrupted even in the most challenging of settings.”

The report on the status of India’s polio fight was found mention in this week’s issue of the journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which is published by the US Centers for Disease Control.

The last reported case of polio in India was recorded in mid-January, a more than nine-month polio-free stretch that the report calls 'unprecedented'. In 2010, there were 40 cases of polio in India from January to the end of October.

The report notes that in addition to the lack of new cases, a programme that looks for polio viruses in sewage in three key areas of the country isn’t spotting viruses either. The sewage surveillance is considered an early warning system.

When polio viruses are found to be circulating in sewage, cases of paralytic polio often follow. “Viruses were last seen in the sewers of New Delhi in August 2010 and in the sewers of Mumbai in November of last year,” it said.

On the contrary, polio efforts in Pakistan are flagging. The country has recorded 136 cases of paralytic polio to date this year, compared to 101 for the same period last year.

Even China reported that viruses from Pakistan had triggered China’s first polio outbreak in over a decade. So far China has reported 18 cases in that outbreak.