Eradicating polio an uphill task in India

NEW DELHI: Polio eradication seems a distant dream with 66 cases already being reported from eight states so far.
Last year, the government believed it was close to eradicating polio, with only 29 cases reported in the same time period. However, a major outbreak in Uttar Pradesh and another in West Bengal sent the numbers soaring by 2002-end.
Apart from these two states, the other affected states this year are Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Bihar, Gujarat and Delhi.
While UP and West Bengal continue to be badly affected — 20 children in each state being crippled by polio — even states like Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh are showing fresh polio cases.
The pulse polio programme, initiated in 1995, and viewed as one of the biggest and most successful public health programmes in the country, had aimed at eradicating the polio virus from India by 2000. All other countries in the world except India, Nigeria and Pakistan have eradicated polio. Even neighbouring Bangladesh and Nepal are now polio-free.
The spread of the polio virus in India is of concern not just to the Indian government, but also to international agencies working towards the eradication of the disease. Recently, an Indian polio virus strain was found in Lebanon. Health officials say polio eradication in India cannot be achieved before 2005.
One reason for the rapid resurgence of the virus in some states is the poor participation in the round-the-year immunisation programmes. While states have scaled up efforts on mass immunisation on pulse polio immunisation days, routine immunisation still remains low on priority.
So in UP, where only 50 per cent children are taken for immunisation at birth for polio, or Bihar only 20.8 per cent children are taken for round-the-year immunisation, a large pool of unprotected children remains susceptible to the virus. Last year, 1,241 children in UP alone were crippled by polio.
‘‘Routine immunisation makes a lot of impact. The virus keeps circulating because a number of children are not protected at birth,’’ says Union family welfare secretary JVR Prasada Rao.