India: Polio cases cross 200 mark; Bihar tops

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Source: http://www.newsonair.com/news.asp?ca...onal&id=NN1735

May 4
The number of fresh polio cases in the country has crossed the 200 mark.
According to the latest figures, 203 fresh cases of the crippling diseases have been reported, out of which 157 are from Bihar and 40 in Uttar Pradesh. While all the cases in Uttar Pradesh are of P-3 strain of the polio virus, one case reported from Bihar is of P-1 variety which is more dangerous and spreads fast. One case each of P-1 variety has also been reported from Delhi, West Bengal and Orissa this year. One case each of P-3 strain has also been reported from Rajasthan, Haryana and Maharashtra.
According to WHO, among the Asian countries, India is closest to stopping the spread of P-1 as the key areas in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have made tremendous progress in reducing the cases of polio virus of this variety.
Only 12 cases of the deadly P-1 strain have been reported from India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. 354 fresh cases of polio have been reported so far this year from across the world and India continues to have the highest number of polio cases in the world. It is followed by Nigeria which has reported 126 cases this year.

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Re: India: Polio cases cross 200 mark; Bihar tops

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/D...ow/3010395.cms

Polio strikes second time this year
5 May 2008, 0224 hrs IST,Kounteya Sinha,TNN

NEW DELHI: Polio has struck Delhi for the second time this year with the latest victim being a 10-month old boy from Okhla, who was diagnosed with the crippling disease on Friday night.

Azad Rao, son of a rickshaw-puller and a resident of Jogabai Extension slum in Okhla Industrial Area, has been infected by the P3 strain of polio virus. Experts told TOI that the boy had not received a single dose of the trivalent polio vaccine under India's routine immunisation programme.

However, he was administered five doses of the monovalent oral polio vaccine against the P1 strain (MOPV1) under India's polio control and surveillance programme.

This is the second polio case in the city this year. In March, the country's first P1 wild polio virus strain was isolated from Delhi. Fourteen-month-old Gulnaz from Darbangia colony in Kirti Nagar area was the victim.

She too was a daughter of a rickshaw-puller, whose family had migrated from Bihar just six months ago. She was supposedly administered 10 doses of OPV in the two national immunisation rounds in January and February this year.

P1 travels faster and infects more children, which is why India's emphasis has been on eradicating type 1 first. P3 is a very slow moving virus with low virulence. P1 causes paralysis in one out of every 200 children, as compared to
P3, which causes paralysis in one out of every 1,000 infections.

Speaking to TOI, a state health ministry official said, ??Azad Rao was vaccinated with only MOPV1 and so was protected against just the P1 strain. Under the country's routine immunisation programme, children are vaccinated against all the three polio strains ? P1, P2 and P3 ? even though P2 has been eradicated in 1999. Unfortunately, Azad had not received a single RI polio dose which is why he got infected with the P3 strain.''

According to officials, Delhi has had three immunisation rounds, in January, February and March, and an additional mop-up round in April after the country's first P1 case was isolated. In all the three rounds, which vaccinated atleast 25 lakh children each, MOPV1 was used.

The last time that children in Delhi were immunised against the P3 strain was in October 2007.

??The state health department will undertake an emergency mop-up operation with this new P3 case cropping up just like we did in and around Kirti Nagar after the P1 strain was isolated,'' an official said.

Union health ministry officials say the migrant population is at greatest risk of getting infected with polio, having missed immunisation while on the move. This population is, therefore, now being identified and immunised outside the endemic states. The polio virus is frequently imported into Delhi due to extensive travel to the Capital by migrants but the state government does not want a new outbreak on its hands.

In 2008, around 204 polio cases have been isolated from India with 200 of them being P3 strains.
According to Dr Bruce Aylward, director, Global Polio Eradication Initiative at WHO, India leads the world in the progress towards controlling the spread of the most dangerous type 1 polio virus.

During discussions with health ministry officials recently, Dr Aylward reaffirmed that finishing P1 would require responding to any new case with immediate and large-scale case response vaccination campaigns covering over 2 million children each time.

??In 2008, there have been only 12 cases of P1 in all of Asia, four each in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, in contrast to over 100 cases in Nigeria. Among Asian countries, India is clearly the closest to stopping P1 as key areas of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have made tremendous progress in reducing P1 cases. There is no P1 case in UP this year and only one in Bihar,'' Dr Aylward said.

Polio has been crippling India, with 864 cases in 2007 and to 676 cases in 2006. This made finance minister P Chidambaram allocate Rs 1,042 crore just for polio in the Union Budget for 2008-09.

kounteya.sinha@timesgroup.com

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Re: India: Polio cases cross 200 mark; Bihar tops

Source: http://www.expressindia.com/latest-n...-drops/313439/

1,500 families say no to polio drops
Express News Service
Posted online: Friday , May 23, 2008 at 12:54:14

Mumbai, May 22 BHIWANDI: State?s second polio case this year detected in powerloom town that has a huge migrant population, child had not been immunised in UP

Fourteen-month-old Raj Gupta sleeps soundly on the hospital bed at the Indira Gandhi Memorial hospital, Bhiwandi, even as his mother eyes well up at mention of polio.

After four years, this satellite town on the north-eastern fringes of Mumbai, a powerloom town with a huge migrant population has registered Raj as a polio case, the state?s second this year. The worse news: As many as 1,500 families in Bhiwandi have, despite immense special efforts by health workers to dispel misconceptions and misunderstandings related to the oral polio vaccine in the community, repeatedly refused to let their children be administered the dosage.

?There have been several measures we have adopted to convert the mindset. Yet, the biggest problem we have is of repeated refusals. Some people refuse to let their children be given the vaccine despite the sermons and the educational efforts we have made,? said Dr B D Sorte, chief medical officer, Bhiwandi. ?That is our biggest challenge. Our records show that there are 1,500 such families. They also refuse when our workers go to their house to administer the vaccine.?

In 2006, Maharashtra recorded a polio case after a break of three years, bringing the state back on the national polio map. Since then, health officials have identified migration from northern states of the country as the primary source of the virus in Mumbai and its suburbs. Since last year, under the guidance of the World Health Organisation, officials have been conducting monthly pulse polio programmes across the state.

Raj, who migrated to Mumbai in October last year, has been administered the oral polio vaccine since then. His homemaker mother, however, admits that she refused to let her son be injected during a regular immunisation round back home in their hometown in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh.

?The only thing was that I didn?t give him the rural injections. But I did give all the polio doses after coming to Mumbai. I hope he gets well, he is my only child,?she says.

Raj developed a fever and weakness in the last week of April, following which he was taken to a local doctor who referred the child to the local health centre. Officials there suspected polio since Raj was also growing weak in his right leg. He was sent to the IGM Hospital on April 27 and a confirmation of polio was received last week from the Haffkine Institute Laboratory.

?The date of the onset of polio is April 26. He is under treatment now and we will be able to tell the chances of recovery only after 60 days,? said Dr Sorte.

Raj has been confirmed to be affected by the wild polio strain (P3). With strains of P3, a milder version of the virus, being found in the drains of Mumbai as well as among some patients, the monovalent P3 vaccine is being administered during the Pulse Polio rounds.

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Re: India: Polio cases cross 200 mark; Bihar tops

Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryP...in+Bihar%2c+UP

Steep rise in polio cases in Bihar, UP sounds alert
Patna/Lucknow, May 28, 2008
First Published: 01:52 IST(28/5/2008)
Last Updated: 01:55 IST(28/5/2008)

Polio cases are on the rise in Bihar. The state reported 180 new cases this year, which is highest in the country. On an average, the disease afflicted nine children every week in 2008. The worst-affected districts in Bihar are Samastipur, Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur and Khagaria, which reported 42 per cent of the cases this year.

With spurt in polio cases in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh has sounded an alert in the districts bordering that state. Director general medical health Dr Rajendra Kumar has directed officials to organise aggressive immunisation drive. Talking to the Hindustan Times, Dr Kumar said, ?This year we has been able to check the spread of polio virus to some extent. This year only 21 districts reported polio cases (53) as compared to 43 districts reporting 341 cases last year,? he said.

This year cases were reported from Ghazipur, Varanasi and Azamgarh ? located near Bihar border.

The most worrying part is that most of the affected children in Bihar had been administered around seven doses of polio drops. Health planners including some paediatricians, involved in the immunisation programme, differ on the number of doses required to protect a child. While some say even 14 doses are not enough to provide immunity to children, others maintain three are enough.

Quoting studies, former head of paediatric department, PMCH, Dr S.P. Srivastava said if seven mixed doses of the vaccine fail to provide protection to children, then there must be some missing link somewhere. ?Either the vaccine was not potent enough to develop immunity among the children or the cold chain was not maintained,? he added.

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Re: India: Polio cases cross 200 mark; Bihar tops

Sourrce: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/I...ow/3084428.cms

Two-pronged battle to combat polio

30 May 2008, 0352 hrs IST,Kounteya Sinha,TNN
NEW DELHI: India has now set two targets in its fight against polio ? stop transmission of the P1 strain of polio virus by the end of 2008 and eliminate infections by the P3 strain in 2009.

India, for the past seven years, was badly affected by the P1 virus ? the most virulent strain which causes paralysis in one out of every 200 children. However, in 2008, the country recorded the lowest number of infections caused by this strain. This year, only four cases of P1 infections have been recorded. Worst affected states showed marked improvement ? Uttar Pradesh has not recorded a single P1 case in 2008 while Bihar has found only one child to be infected with this strain.

Meanwhile, India has seen a steep rise in the number of P3 cases. For the first time since 1999, India recorded more infections by P3 than P1 in 2007 ? 793 of the total 873 cases.

In 2008, out of the 240 polio cases, 236 has been caused by P3 strain. Experts say P3, in comparison to the P1 strain, is a slow moving virus and causes paralysis in one out of every 1,000 infections. This has made the India Expert Advisory Group (IEAG) on polio eradication, which concluded its two-day meeting on Thursday in Delhi, suggest a largescale emergency mop-up vaccination round within 24 hours whenever a case of polio (both P1 and P3 strain) outside UP and Bihar is recorded.

IEAG also warned of risk of importation of Type 1 virus from states in India facing P1 circulation. Other recommendations included building vaccine security to respond to any future outbreak.

"Since India plans to eradicate P1 polio virus this year and P3 next year and will require speedy control of any type of outbreak, the country should stock up polio vaccines both for P1 and P3 strains," an official said.

The meeting, which was attended by health secretary Naresh Dayal, Bruce Aylward and David Heymann from WHO Geneva, Ann Hasselbalch from Unicef India and Steve Cochi from CDC Atlanta, also concluded that India could be the first endemic country to stop P1 with speedy and aggressive mop-up vaccination rounds.

"The programme should focus on finishing P1 in Bihar. All endemic states and those at risk of polio virus should be on alert to quickly respond to any new polio virus case. We also recommend mix use of mOPV1 (monovalent oral polio vaccine) and mOPV3 in the sub-national immunisation rounds in the rest of 2008 and continued focus on vaccinating migratory population and improving routine immunisation," IEAG said.

Earlier, IEAG had asked the health ministry to focus on vaccinating newborn children in the high risk states of UP and Bihar, specially aged between 0-3 years of age.

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Re: India: Polio cases cross 200 mark; Bihar tops

Source: http://www.expressindia.com/latest-n...t-year/317350/

City still on national polio map, govt hopes this will be last year
Swatee Kher
Posted online: Monday , June 02, 2008 at 11:40:31
Updated: Monday , June 02, 2008 at 11:40:31

Mumbai, June 01 Remaining Pulse Polio rounds will be divided between p1 and p3 vaccines, target to eradicate deadlier p1 strain

With two cases of polio being detected in and around Mumbai this year, the financial capital remained in sharp focus while the polio programme policy was drawn up at a national meeting of the Polio Expert Committee earlier this week in New Delhi.

Though the deadlier strain of the polio virus (p1) remains the focus of the national programme, the detection of two (p3) strain cases in Mumbai last month has now prompted state health officials to divide the upcoming polio campaigns between the two strains.

There will be six more rounds of Pulse Polio immunisation this year. Because of the detection of cases in Mumbai region with p3 virus, we will have to give vaccines for that strain. But with the national focus on eradicating the p1 strain, some rounds will be held to attack that strain,? said Dr Prakash Doke, state health services director.

Doke added that officials in Mumbai would plan the schedule for the remaining year in the coming week.

Since the detection of a large number of p3 cases in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and after finding the same strains in Mumbai?s sewerage, the preceding two rounds of ?do boondh jindagi ke? in Mumbai have been with the monovalent p3 vaccine, which specifically targets this strain.

In 2006, an outbreak of the p1 strain in several Uttar Pradesh districts saw the virus spreading though the country, with Maharashtra recording five cases. The government then introduced monthly Pulse Polio rounds with monovalent p1 vaccine in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra.

A recent scientific report from Uttar Pradesh studied children in the high-risk Moradabad district and said they have developed close to 86-96 per cent immunity to the p1 strain. Of the four cases of p1 this year, none is from Uttar Pradesh.

?The scientific research paper shows very high levels of immunity among the children in Moradabad, which is a high risk area. Moreover, there have been no cases of p1 in Uttar Pradesh so far. The other cases are of ?orphan? virus and are not likely to spread. So officials are optimistic that this will be the last year of p1 cases,? said Dr Doke.

A Pulse Polio immunisation round was also held on Sunday, before the monsoons set in.

Polio Sunday

Another Polio Sunday was affected by schools? summer vacations, with about 59.37 per cent of the city?s over 13 lakh children administered the dose on Sunday. The previous round held in April had recorded 58.73 per cent turnout at 6,700 booths.

In both the rounds, Ward C recorded the highest booth average and R/South ward recorded the lowest turnout.

On Sunday, 70.08 per cent of children in Ward C were administered the monovalent p3 vaccine, while 51.23 per cent children were given the vaccine in R/South Ward.

?It is because of holidays. Children are out of the city and the turnout is low. Even last year, the turnout was less in April and May,? said Dr Mangala Gomare, polio programme officer, BMC. The next Pulse Polio round is scheduled for July 6.

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Re: India: Polio cases cross 200 mark; Bihar tops

Source: http://www.telegraphindia.com/108060...ry_9385446.jsp

Virus strikes at polio hope
OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

Lucknow, June 8: First the good news.

Last month, the World Health Assembly at Geneva said it hoped India would be the first polio-endemic country to eradicate the most virulent P-1 virus.

Two days ago, on June 6, a 12-year-old in Badaun, Uttar Pradesh, was declared afflicted by the virus.

Yesterday, district health officials came to know of another case. Polio had also afflicted two-year-old Salim, though it was a less virulent type of the virus, P-3.

Salim and Ujjma, the 12-year-old girl who showed the first symptoms on May 4 and went for a stool test 10 days later, are among the 251 polio cases India has so far recorded this year, 17 of them from the heartland.

Last year, 873 cases had been reported in the country.

A website of the Global Polio Initiative says ?11 new cases were reported in the past week, bringing the total number of cases for 2008 to 251. The most recent case had onset of paralysis on 14 May from Uttar Pradesh?.

Immediately after Ujjma was declared afflicted with the P-1 virus, doctors and health officials from the anti-polio campaign visited her home in Badaun, 350km from state capital Lucknow.

?This is the first case of P-1 virus infection in Uttar Pradesh this year and the sixth in the district in the last 10 years,? joint director, health, Habib Sahaswan, said yesterday.

Additional health director Nigar Sultana, who also visited Ujjma?s house, told reporters that the father of the girl ? now admitted to a medical college ? had said she had not been vaccinated.

The detection of the polio cases has come barely a month after the WHA called on India to intensify ?large-scale mop-up vaccination campaigns? to ?interrupt? the ?final chains of polio virus transmission, given the very low levels? of P-1 in South Asian countries.

India, delegates at the Geneva assembly had said, needs to keep up its pugnacious efforts to combat the P-1 virus.

Some even said they were confident India could be the first of the remaining polio-endemic countries to wipe out the P-1 virus that paralyses five times more children than the P-3 does.

A state official said though a P-1 victim had been found, the spread of this virus had largely been contained.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), P-1 cases in India had come down from 646 in 2006 to 80 in 2007.

The WHO unit in Uttar Pradesh said besides Ujjma, four P-1 cases had been reported from the country so far, one each from Bengal, Orissa, Bihar and Delhi.
Top

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Re: India: Polio cases cross 200 mark; Bihar tops

Source: http://www.expressindia.com/latest-n...Badaun/320517/

Health officials on alert as P-1 polio resurges in Badaun

Maulshree-Seth
Posted online: Monday , June 09, 2008 at 03:12:47
Updated: Monday , June 09, 2008 at 03:12:47

Lucknow, June 08 As health agencies celebarted the eradication of P-1 polio virus from Uttar Pradesh, a similar case reported from Badaun district has put a sudden end to their jubilation.

The first case of P-1 in the state after a gap of five months was confirmed in the report of the National Polio Surveillance Programme on June 6.

According to the report, the presence of P-1 polio virus were found in the stool sample of a 12-year-old girl, Ujma, daughter of one Anees Ahmad. Ujma is a resident of Choinagla village of Badaun.

?We received the report on Saturday and have started working on the case. We want to ascertain the reason behind the resurgence of the virus, which was eradicated from the state. We will soon meet WHO and UNICEF officials to decide on the course of action,? said Badaun Chief Medical Officer Dr Rajendra Kumar.

The report proves that the virus is still being transmitted mainly because of three reasons.

First, for the last 20 months, there was no reported case of P-1 virus in Badaun. For the last five months, no such case was reported in the state.

Second, Ujma?s age indicates that the virus was transmitted during the last seven years when she crossed the age of taking pulse-polio drop. Third, she has no history of movement to any other state, which still reports P-1 cases.

According to health officials, though Ujma has not travelled outside the district, her father has been constantly travelling to New Delhi and Bihar for work. ?Her father could be the possible carrier of the virus, but it is difficult to conclude anything at the initial stage,? said Dr Kumar.

The state health department is preparing to start a monovalent Oral Polio Vaccine-1 (mOPVP-1) mop-up round in June.

?The WHO and UNICEF have agreed that at least five million children in the adjoining areas will have to be vaccinated at the earliest to eliminate the chances of further transmission of the virus,? said M L Khatloiya, Director General of the family welfare department.

This year, 258 polio cases have been reported in the country, among which, P-1 polio cases are only five. While the latest has been been reported in Uttar Pradesh, one case each has been reported in New Delhi, Bihar, Orrisa and West Bengal.

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Re: India: Polio cases cross 200 mark; Bihar tops

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/L...ow/3121858.cms

P1 polio virus detected in state after eight months
12 Jun 2008, 0338 hrs IST, TNN

LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh government may have to put on hold its ambitious plans to make polio vaccination a part of routine immunisation programme by the end of 2008.

Detection of the highly virulent P1 polio virus strain in Uzma ? a 12-year-old girl from Badaun district of Uttar Pradesh ? last week has forced a rethink among policy-makers.

Believed to be on its way out, the P1 strain that paralyses 1 in 200 children it infects has resurfaced in UP after a gap of nearly eight months.

In order to ensure that this case does not prove a setback to the eradication programme in UP, the state government has swung into action and on Wednesday decided to prepone the monovalent oral polio vaccination (MOPV round) for P1 slated for July 6 to June 29. This was confirmed by Dr S K Pathyarch, the regional team leader of the National Polio Surveillance Project here.

Detailed epidemiological investigation and genetic sequencing of the Badaun virus is presently underway to determine whether it is a reintroduction of the virus in western UP or a continuation of the transmission from last year. Uzma is the fifth child in India to be infected with the P1 virus this year ? the other four being from Orrisa, Bihar, New Delhi and West Bengal.

What gives the UP case a bizarre twist is the age of the victim. This could be the first case of a patient above five years contracting the virus in the last 10 years. She couldn't possibly have taken the polio drops in last six years at least.

WHO-NPSP project manager Dr Hamid Jafari told TOI, "The case in 12-year-old malnourished child whose vaccination status is not known shows that the level of immunity to P1 among young children in western UP is very high and the virus is desperately trying to survive. This is consistent with the few remaining chains of type 1 transmission."

He added, "Since conditions in these areas are favourable for virus transmission, a series of large scale vaccination rounds are being planned to prevent it from spreading further. At present, a MOPV 1 round is on in Bihar which is the most likely source of the infection."

Experts say because the victim hails from the minority community, which has for long expressed doubts over the polio vaccine, the government still has much to do to make the polio drops acceptable among them.

The India Expert Advisory Group on polio eradication recently recommended immediate and intense mop-up vaccinations in and around areas where P1 infections are detected in order to eliminate the strain by 2008.

UP had reported 22 cases of P1 in 2007 ? the last case detected in October from Sultanpur district. The highest tally of P1 virus was reported in 2002 when the number had reached an alarming 1242. The number plummeted to 520 in 2006.

The consistently tapering graph made officials breathe a sigh of relief. Therefore, since last year, in a significant shift of strategy, the department had been seriously mulling over a possibility of wrapping up the 12-year-old intensive campaign and package polio vaccination with national routine immunisation programme (BCG DPT and measles vaccination).

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Re: India: Polio cases cross 200 mark; Bihar tops

Source: http://www.thestatesman.net/page.new...ss=1&id=209689

Polio vaccine drive successful?

Statesman News Service
KOLKATA, June 23: Yet another polio case that was confirmed in Howrah a few days ago has raised questions about the success of pulse polio immunisation programme (PPIP) in the state.
State health department officials said the detection of the polio case in Howrah where an 11-month-old boy was afflicted with the virus has left them in an awkward situation, especially after the state had claimed cent percent success of PPIP in few districts especially surrounding Kolkata.
Mr Khalil Ahmed, the district magistrate, Howrah, said: ?Detection of a polio case in the district has exposed lapses in the PPIP. Till the last PPIP that was held on 8 June, we had thought that cent percent success was achieved, but this case suggests that there is a need for more programmes to make people aware of the lethal disease.? However, the authorities blamed the parents of Imtajul Shah, the victim, for keeping health workers from administering a polio dose to the baby. Even Imtajul's father, Mr Ismail Shah said the child is suffering because polio drops could not be administered to him, as he had fallen ill whenever polio drops were administered.
According to Mr Shah, they had taken Imtajul to a doctor at Uluberia following his illness. The doctor suspected Imtajul had polio. The baby was then referred to Gabberia State General Hospital. Later, the victim's stool was send to World Health Organisation (WHO) for a confirmation test.
WHO, however, confirmed the presence of P-3 virus of polio and said Imtajul was suffering from polio on Saturday.
The chief medical officer, health (CMOH), Howrah, Dr Dilip Deb said: ?With Imtajul falling victim of polio, people who are ignorant of the disease, would learn its consequence.
Moreover, it is expected that people engaged in PPIP would also learn the hard way and perform their duty properly.?
Dr Deb said the district authorities would launch programmes to generate awareness at the next PPIP on 8 July.

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Re: India: Polio cases cross 200 mark; Bihar tops

Thank you Jonas Salk for the vaccine.

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Re: India: Polio cases cross 200 mark; Bihar tops

Source: http://www.expressindia.com/latest-n...adabad/352989/

After 19 months, Type-1 polio returns to its epicentre in UP: Moradabad
MAULSHREE SETH
Posted online: Monday , August 25, 2008 at 01:24:14

Lucknow, August 24 After remaining polio-free for 19 months, the Moradabad district has once again reported a case of P1 virus. The district was the epicentre of a polio outbreak in 2006. The fresh case has sent alarm bells ringing in the state health department.

Two-year-old Zunaid from Menolta, one of the high-risk blocks of Moradabad, was found infected with the P1 virus, the most virulent polio virus, despite the fact that he was administered seven doses of the vaccine for the particular virus. His samples have been sent for genetic sequencing to find out the origin of the virus.

After the 2006 outbreak, international health agencies like WHO had declared Moradabad the only place in the world that was exporting polio virus to polio-free countries. Many countries had then made polio vaccination certification mandatory for Indian children travelling abroad.

Since then health agencies had taken several steps to contain the virus. After controlling the spread of P1 virus in the district for nearly two years, the health agencies had thought the fight against polio would be won by the end of 2008.

The feel-good picture no longer exists now. First, it was Badaun, now Moradabad.

The state government and the World Health Organisation have begun taking steps to counter the situation. ?We are doing our best and a special mop-up vaccination drive for P1 virus has been scheduled for August 26 in 13 high-risk districts of western UP,? said Dr M L Khatloiya, Director General of the family welfare department.

WHO has mobilised over 55 surveillance medical officers from all over the state to reach these 13 districts, especially Moradabad, Badaun, Shahjahanpur and Bareilly.

?Our officers will camp for the next 20 days in all the high-risk areas. They will closely monitor the immunisation drive and provide technical support to the polio programme,? said Dr S K Patryarch, regional coordinator of the National Polio Surveillance Project, a collaborative programme of the Centre and WHO.

In a related development, Rotary International organised a meeting of its Ulema committee of Bareilly on Sunday and requested the committee members to work towards removing the resistance to the polio drop among the Muslims.

?We hope that with an all-out effort, we can win the fight against polio in Uttar Pradesh. We have asked the members to work in the high-risk areas of western UP,? said Ashok Mahajan, Director of Rotary International.

Within a week, four P1 cases have been reported from India and all are from Uttar Pradesh, including one that was reported with both Type 1 and Type 3 polio viruses. This takes the total number of Type1 polio cases in the state to 11, while Bihar comes second with two cases so far this year.

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Re: India: Polio cases cross 200 mark; Bihar tops

Source: http://www.freshnews.in/372-polio-ca...in-delhi-63696

372 polio cases in India, fresh immunisation round in Delhi
By Indo-Asian News Service on Monday, September 1, 2008

With 372 cases of polio reported this year, the disease continues to spread unabated in India and the Delhi government said it will launch another round of the immunisation drive Sunday.

Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said though the capital city has reported two cases including one P1 (the deadliest form of polio) case, efforts are on to make the city polio free.

She administered a polio vaccine drops to few children at her residence and said that over two million children will be administered vaccine Sunday.

The state government has set up 7,500 polio booths to administer polio vaccine children below the age of five. Around 30,000 health workers and volunteers will carry out the drive from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. across the city Sunday.

The workers will administer vaccine at major public places like railway stations, bus terminals, major temples, Delhi Metro stations, Millennium Park, Zoo and outlets of McDonalds.

Apart from this, a door-to-door weeklong survey would also be conducted under search and immunization Pulse Polio Campaign. Around 17,000 workers in 8,600 teams would visit different colonies including slum clusters to administer vaccine to children who could not reach polio booths.

?Our government would ensure that no virus of polio could enter the territory of national capital. For making a strong nation, we must have strong children, which would only be possible with the success of Polio Programme,? Dikshit said.

Delhi initiated Pulse Polio Immunization programme in 1994 and launched house-to-house ?Search and Immunization? in 1999.

In 2008, 372 cases have been reported at national level till date out of which 356 cases are of P3 (milder form of polio) wild and 17 cases are of P1 wild virus.

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Re: India: Polio cases cross 200 mark; Bihar tops

Source: http://www.telegraphindia.com/108101...ry_9953344.jsp

Polio virus surfaces in UP after 10 months
G.S. MUDUR

New Delhi, Oct 10: The most common form of the polio virus that health officials believed was on the verge of eradication from India has resurfaced in Uttar Pradesh, defying a new vaccination strategy introduced three years ago.

The National Polio Surveillance programme has detected 32 cases of polio caused by the P1 polio virus in seven districts of Uttar Pradesh from June through September this year, after 10 months of no P1 anywhere in the state.

The P1 virus ? one of three serotypes of the wild polio virus ? has returned despite intensive immunisation of children in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh with a new monovalent oral polio vaccine (mOPV) over the past two years. India?s health ministry had introduced mOPV about three years ago after studies had shown that it is a sharper and more effective tool against the polio virus than the trivalent OPV.

?We?ve seen some great progress in recent months, but the appearance of P1 in UP is disappointing,? said T. Jacob John, head of the India Expert Advisory Group, a panel that advises the government on how to conduct its war on polio.

The actual size of the resurgence ? the total number of children infected ? would be higher than 32, he said. ?Each case of polio indicates about 160 other susceptible, or unprotected, children infected,? John said.

Polio programme officials said the mOPV has performed very well and, as expected, better than the trivalent OPV. They said genetic studies on the virus circulating in Uttar Pradesh have shown that P1 slipped into the state?s Badaun district from Bihar.

?It is because of mOPV that the most endemic part of India ? western UP ? had been able to stop P1 transmission for more than 18 months,? said Hamid Jafari, project manager of the National Polio Surveillance Project, a joint programme of the Indian government and the World Health Organisation.

?The P1 cases in Badaun reflect reduced frequency and increased interval between mOPV immunisation rounds in 2007 to tackle an outbreak of (polio caused by) P3,? Jafari said.

?This allowed an increase in (the number of) susceptible children in the young age group who had not receive sufficient doses of mOPV.?

In a meeting in May this year, the IEAG had said that following intensive vaccination activities by the government in UP and Bihar during 2007 and 2008, the P1 strain of polio was ?on the verge of eradication from India?.

Until June 2008, the NPSP had detected only four cases of P1 this year ? one each in Bihar, Delhi, Orissa, and Bengal. And three districts in Utar Pradesh ? Moradabad, Meerut, and Muzaffarnagar ? dubbed by polio programme managers as the historical centre of P1 in India and the toughest place in the world to eradicate polio, had not reported P1 since November 2006.

?The P1 circulation in UP can again be stopped by aggressive use of mOPV, while ensuring that P1 is also stopped in Bihar,? Jafari said. The IEAG had cautioned earlier this year that P1 could be detected after several months. It P1 persists, the most likely period for its detection would be between July to November 2008, the IEAG had said, calling for intense surveillance.

?The mOPV has shown that P1 transmission can be stopped in its stronghold,? said Nicholas Grassly, an infectious disease expert at Imperial College, London, who had published research to show that mOPV would be better than trivalent OPV.

?There was no P1 transmission in western UP for 18 months, from November 2006 until June 2008. This had never been achieved before,? Grassly told The Telegraph.

The national polio surveillance effort has detected 449 cases this year. The number of confirmed polio cases last year was 874.

Genetic studies on polio virus strains have shown that virtually all of P1 in India originates in western Uttar Pradesh. Scientists in Mumbai looking for polio virus in sewage water have detected only a single P1 strain since the beginning of this year.

The sewage scan is intended to detect polio virus excreted by infected individuals in Mumbai, a city that attracts people from across the nation. In previous years, they used to detect P1 several times a year.

?A decreased frequency of P1 in Mumbai?s sewage is an indicator of the progress the nation is making against polio,? IEAG chairman John said.

[Shiloh]

Re: India: Polio cases cross 200 mark; Bihar tops

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/D...ow/3605288.cms

8-month-old is Delhi's latest polio victim

NEW DELHI: Polio's most dangerous strain has returned to haunt the Capital. An eight-month-old girl Hasnim from the Seemapuri area of East Delhi has become the latest victim to get infected with the P1 strain of the crippling disease.

This is the third case of polio in Delhi this year. A P1 infection was reported from Zakhira in February while the less virulent P3 polio virus was isolated from Okhla in March. Genetic studies of the viruses had shown that both originated from Bihar. In 2007, Delhi reported two polio cases while in 2006, five polio cases were confirmed from the Capital.

Union health ministry sources told TOI that Hasnim's father, Moinududdin, is a commercial driver who frequently visits two of the worst polio infected states -- Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. This, experts say, could have led to the virus's importation.

"Hasnim had received four doses of oral polio vaccine during anti-polio campaigns and two doses during routine immunization. The child had missed the last polio campaign dose which left her vulnerable," an official said.

The official added: "The girl lives in a shack in Seemapuri along the UP border where the virus is in circulation. A mop-up immunization round is presently being planned for UP. The girl's family hails from Balrampur in UP."

P1 is the most dangerous form of polio virus as it can cause huge outbreaks and travel long distances. P1 accounted for 95% polio cases in the country till 2006. P1 causes paralysis in one out of every 200 children, as compared to P3, which causes paralysis in one out of every 1,000 infections.

Multiple vaccination rounds are now being planned in Delhi to respond to the latest P1 importation reported from Seemapuri.

Health ministry officials had earlier expressed concern about how children were getting infected by the virus, in spite of having been vaccinated. In response, an expert said: "Children living in slums with poor environmental sanitation need higher doses of polio vaccine to be adequately protected. This is because intestinal infections and diarrhoea are common among them which affects the vaccine uptake. A few children, therefore, despite taking multiple doses of polio vaccine, remain unprotected and get polio."

"Migrant populations are at greatest risk of getting infected with polio, having missed immunization while on the move. This population is, therefore, now being identified and immunized outside the endemic states."

On why Delhi was failing to curb polio spread, a ministry official added: "Although polio virus is frequently imported into Delhi due to extensive travel, intense vaccination campaigns carried out across the national capital prevented persistent circulation of the virus and stopped its local transmission. In recent years, all polio cases in Delhi have been among children living in slums, mostly migrants or those living in close proximity to migrants from the endemic states."

17 Oct 2008, 2348 hrs IST, Kounteya Sinha,TNN