India at risk as long as Pakistan is not polio free
The number of polio cases in Pakistan has already crossed 200 this year
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2014-10-26 06:34 GMT
Chennai: Though India got the ‘polio-free’ tag without reporting any wild polio case for three years, there are around 100 vaccine-derived polio-affected people in India, health experts say, and add that injectable polio vaccine is important to combat this type of polio. They said the country has to work as if polio still persists here.
Dr Jacob John, member of the WHO committee on global polio eradication and chairman, Child Health Foundation, says, “Though wild polio was eradicated from the country, the threat of outbreak of the disease is still open.”Because oral vaccine might cause vaccine-associated paralytic polio or circulate vaccine-derived poliovirus, which comes under type-2 polio, early introduction of injectable polio vaccine is important, he adds.
He also says that the government will introduce it during the third quarter in 2015, after which polio type-2 vaccine will be removed from the universal immunisation programme (UIP).“The threat of virus importation from Pakistan is very serious. Though it is now mandatory for everyone from the neighbouring country to take an additional dose of polio vaccine before entering India, measures like this can only reduce the risk, not eliminate it. The number of polio cases in Pakistan has already crossed 200 this year, the highest in more than a decade, setting alarm bells ringing. It is necessary for India to keep 100 per cent immunity status against polio until Pakistan gets polio-free.
Till that happens, we have to act as if we continue to have polio in our country,” he says, and adds, in this situation, type-1 and 3 polio vaccines, which are highly infectious and can lead to paralytic polio, will also be removed from the UIP list.“WHO has declared polio as a public health emergency of international concern. As long as there is polio anywhere, unprotected children in all countries are at risk of getting polio.
As the global programme takes efforts to stop polio transmission in the remaining endemic and infected countries, the WHO southeast Asia region is working towards introducing one dose of injectable polio vaccine into routine immunisation schedules, strengthening of routine immunisation and withdrawal of the oral polio vaccine,” adds Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, regional director, WHO southeast Asia region.