Inspite of our concerted effort to reduce Polio cases in India, we continue to had the highest number of Polio cases in the world in 2008. The disease has crippled more children till April, 2008 than it did during the same period in 2007. According to Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) India recorded 196 polio cases till April 22nd, 2008. In contrast, three other prominent polio contribute countries viz Nigeria, Pakistan & Afghanistan have recorded 123 polio cases together.
GPEI data also shows that till April 22, 2007, India had 34 cases of polio in comparison to the surprising figure of 196. According to Union health ministry data, however, India till April25th, 2008 has 203 polio cases – four of them caused by p1 strain and 199 infected with the p3 strain. Interestingly, 201 out of the 203 children infected by the crippling disease had received the polio vaccine either during polio immunization programme or in the routine immunization. The children who got polio, despite multiple doses, did not get enough number of doses to develop adequate protection to polio virus as per the health ministry.
According to experts, children living in areas with poor environmental sanitation and high population density, like the endemic districts of UP & Bihar, need high doses of polio vaccine to protect adequately against the virus as they are more frequently exposed to polio virus under these circumstances. Also intestinal infections & diarrhoea are common in children living in unhygienic & crowded areas, which affect the vaccine uptake drastically. Therefore a few children, despite taking multiple doses of polio vaccine develop polio in due course.
Apart from that the incidents like some villagers boycott ‘pulse polio’ programme especially in UP & Bihar is also hampering the mission. Sometime inaccessibility to hilly terrains also poses the problem. In some cases parents are reluctant to feed the polio drops to their children due to so many social & religious factors. As a result of which the polio cases due to non-protection increases. So now it is the responsibility of the parents, state & social activities to carry out the programme in a missionary zeal & spirit to atleast prevent the unprotected polio cases which add on to final figure drastically. Special care has to be taken in flood affected areas which are more prone to infection of polio. This is a disease of threat & it can not be prevented once contracted. So let us come together to work vigorously in this regard to eradicate the dreaded polio from our country for ever.