Polio immunisation drive go up at borders to prevent re-entry
21 Jan 2013 7:40 AM IST
India has stepped up vigilance at its borders to prevent the re-entry of polio from Pakistan as it aims to continue its two-year run free from the paralytic disease.
Though World Health Organisation (WHO) took India off the list of polio endemic countries in February 2012, it will declare it ‘polio free’ only if no fresh case is reported for the next one year. But health officials say the risk of polio persists.
India’s close proximity to polio endemic Pakistan and Afghanistan and the fact that India has exported polio to countries near and far such as Nepal, Tajikistan, Angola and Bangladesh puts this country at the risk of importing the polio virus.
To maintain the progress achieved, health ministry officials said they have started round-the-clock polio immunisation at the international borders at five check posts along the India-Pakistan border (Baramullah and Poonch in J&K, Wagah and Attari in Punjab and Munabo in Rajasthan).
Pakistan reported 198 polio cases in 2011 and 58 in 2012. Apart from this, polio immunisation has also been started at 81 locations along the porous India-Nepal border. In 2010, polio travelled from India to Tajikistan. Now, the authorities feel it can return to India via the same route.
‘There is a risk of the polio virus coming back along the same route through which India exported it to other countries in the past. Globally since 2000, as many as 44 countries that had been polio free have suffered from one or more importations of wild polio virus,’ a senior health ministry official said.
The government has also formed state-level teams to respond to any case of polio importation, anywhere in the country. As part of Emergency Preparedness and Response Plans, emergency preparedness groups and rapid response teams have been formed to roll out adequate response in the shortest possible time in the event of an importation, the official added. The last polio case was detected in India in 2011.
Though World Health Organisation (WHO) took India off the list of polio endemic countries in February 2012, it will declare it ‘polio free’ only if no fresh case is reported for the next one year. But health officials say the risk of polio persists.
India’s close proximity to polio endemic Pakistan and Afghanistan and the fact that India has exported polio to countries near and far such as Nepal, Tajikistan, Angola and Bangladesh puts this country at the risk of importing the polio virus.
To maintain the progress achieved, health ministry officials said they have started round-the-clock polio immunisation at the international borders at five check posts along the India-Pakistan border (Baramullah and Poonch in J&K, Wagah and Attari in Punjab and Munabo in Rajasthan).
Pakistan reported 198 polio cases in 2011 and 58 in 2012. Apart from this, polio immunisation has also been started at 81 locations along the porous India-Nepal border. In 2010, polio travelled from India to Tajikistan. Now, the authorities feel it can return to India via the same route.
‘There is a risk of the polio virus coming back along the same route through which India exported it to other countries in the past. Globally since 2000, as many as 44 countries that had been polio free have suffered from one or more importations of wild polio virus,’ a senior health ministry official said.
The government has also formed state-level teams to respond to any case of polio importation, anywhere in the country. As part of Emergency Preparedness and Response Plans, emergency preparedness groups and rapid response teams have been formed to roll out adequate response in the shortest possible time in the event of an importation, the official added. The last polio case was detected in India in 2011.
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