SCIENCENVIRO (Opinion): Polio Updates

• On 13 January, 2012, India reached a major milestone in the history of polio eradication - a 12-month period without any case of polio being recorded.
• Cases in 2011                            1 (last case 13 January 2011)

  Cases in 2010                           42  

  Cases in 2009                           741 

  Cases in 1995                           50,000  

  Cases in 1985                           150,000 

  Last wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) case was on 13 January 2011, Howrah, West Bengal.  

  Last wild poliovirus type 3 (WPV3) case was on 22 October 2010, Pakur, Jharkhand 

  Last wild poliovirus type 2 (WPV2) case was on October 1999, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh  
• Since the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988, the incidence of wild poliovirus has reduced by 99 per cent – from 350,000 children paralyzed or killed annually in 125 countries in 1988 to 649 cases reported in 17 countries in 2011 (as of 14 February, 2012). In 2006, the number of polio-endemic countries (countries that have never stopped indigenous wild poliovirus transmission) was reduced to four – India, Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
• The transmission of the most dangerous WPV1, which caused 95 per cent of polio in India until 2006, dropped to record low levels in 2010. WPV2 have globally eradicated.
• The polio partnership in India is led by the MoHFW, Government of India, with continued support from WHO’s National Polio Surveillance Project (NPSP), Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and UNICEF, as also the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
• During each National  Immunization Day, nearly 2.3 million vaccinators under the  direction of 155,000 supervisors visit 209 million houses to administer  OPV to around 172 million children  under 5 years of age across the  country.
• To reach people on the move, mobile vaccination teams immunize  children at railway stations, inside running trains, at bus stands, market  places, construction sites, etc.
• The key challenge now is to ensure any residual or imported poliovirus in the country is rapidly detected and eliminated.
• The importation of wild poliovirus into China in 2011 highlights the risk that India faces of polio returning to the country.
• The Government of India and all states are putting together Emergency Preparedness and Response Plans to ensure a rapid and appropriate response to any case of polio in the country.
• Ensuring populations on the move – migrants, nomads and cross-border movements – both inside and outside polio-endemic, high-risk and re-infected states and entering India from neighboring Pakistan and Nepal, are protected with OPV in each round.
• Keeping polio eradication as a key health priority in India until global eradication.