India has reported no new cases of polio this past year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since there were no new cases of polio in over a year, India is no longer considered a “polio endemic” area.
The last reported case of polio in India was on January 13, 2011, when a two year old girl showed symptoms of the disease. Her home was located in the West Bengal state and after its report, health workers flooded the region to ensure protection against polio for the other children in the community.
This public health achievement is fragile and a resurgence of infection can still occur if efforts are not sustained. Although health workers may feel like relaxing after such a great achievement, it is crucial that vaccination campaigns and polio education continue to be strong because polio cases can appear without warning in communities.
The polio vaccine is administered orally to children and it helps stop transmission of the wild polio virus. However, in a country with high imports and exports, the virus can easily reenter the country without detection. It only takes one case of polio to ruin India’s progress toward becoming poli0 free.
The next milestone toward full polio eradication in the India is having no new cases of polio for another two years. If achieved, India will be certified as “polio free.” But for now, India is no longer a ‘polio endemic’ areas, leaving Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria on the short list of remaining endemic regions.
Polio is a disease that attacks the nervous system, resulting in irreversible paralysis within hours of infection. Young children are most vulnerable to the disease. In the 1950s, polio was a serious concern for rich nations, where polio was crippling thousands every year. After years of research, an effective vaccine was designed and since then, work has been done to eradication polio globally, similar to smallpox. There have been great strides in eradicating polio from some countries, like the U.S.; however there still remain regions with new polio cases.
In 1988, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched its global campaign to eradicate polio. At the time, the poliovirus was infecting about 1,000 children every day, and nearly half of the cases were in India. The WHO’s goal was to eliminate polio by 2000. Although, the WHO did not reach their 2000 goal for polio eradication, India has dramatically reduced their number of cases.
In the 1990s, India reported having 50,000 to 150,000 cases of polio each year. Then after the start of the World Health Organization’s campaign against polio, the number of polio cases in India began to drop.
India began its mass vaccination campaign in 1995, and the campaign faced major resistance to the vaccination effort, due to its costs and conspiracy rumors. At the time, there were problems with malnutrition, clean water, and other diseases that some people felt were more pressing for India, thus the vaccine campaign faced some resentment and resistance.
In addition, rumors spread among India’s Muslims communities that the polio vaccination campaign was an American conspiracy. Rumors were that the polio vaccine was not really a vaccine, but instead a drug designed to wipe the Muslims out, more specifically making their young sons impotent and their young daughters infertile.
This resistance from the Muslim communities led to massive public education and advocacy campaign, led by UNICEF and Rotary International. The education programs started by convincing religious and community leaders that the vaccine was safe, and over time, the rumors proved to be false and vaccines were successful administered to more children.
In 2009, India reported 741 new cases of polio, representing nearly half the world’s reported cases for that year. In 2010, there were 42 reported cases, and in 2011, there was only one reported case of polio in India.
These dramatic drops in the number of polio are due several factors. These factors include a mass eradication program, requiring international financial support, and the mobilization of millions of people across India to vaccinate all children under five years old.
India has taken strides in overcoming the skepticism surrounding the polio vaccine. In 2011, around 900,000 doses of oral polio vaccine were provided, immunizing 172 million children. This effort took 2.3 million vaccinators who visited about 200 million homes.
In this vaccination effort, India mobilized vaccination teams that immunized children at bus stops, train stations, inside moving trains and in marketplaces. This method tried to vaccinate as many children as possible, providing thorough polio protection within communities.
A serious concern regarding India’s recent success is the risk of reinfections of polio. It is not uncommon for polio reemerge after a significant achievement. For example, countries such as Tajikistan, Angola, Bangladesh and Russia reported reinfections after years of being certified as polio-free for many years.
In the case there is a reinfection in India, India would most likely mobilize a major team effort to respond to the emergency region and vaccinate children in the nearby regions.
This most recent achievement on the path toward polio eradication in India should provide increased morale and public confidence in the program, revealing that being polio free is possible.
Currently, the monitoring for polio is constant in communities throughout India. Medical centers, doctors and even traditional faith healers have been trained to report patient cases with beginning symptoms of what might be polio. Everyday, doctors and volunteers continue to visit communities, examining babies and collecting stool examples for testing, checking for signs of the poliovirus.
Vaccination campaign are very expensive. The Indian government has provided more than $2 billion to help finance the campaign and demonstrated the sort of political leadership and commitment all too rarely seen on a public health issue here. Internationally, there is support from the U.S. government, providing $2 billion for the polio eradication campaign, the Rotary International, donating $1 billion from its members, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, donating more than $1 billion.
