Authorities ring warning bells as polio spreads

[Guest guest]

Authorities ring warning bells as polio spreads

 

Associated Press

 

New Delhi, October 25: A sharp rise in polio cases in Uttar Pradesh

has raised fears of the return of a disease the country was close to

wiping out just three years ago.

 

Faced with the threat of the disease spreading across the country,

worried health authorities plan next month to re-launch an extensive

immunisation drive across Uttar Pradesh, the state where a majority of

the cases have been reported.

 

" There have been more than 400 cases of polio reported.

 

Something has gone wrong, " said Health Secretary Prasanna K. Hota.

 

Of the 416 cases of polio reported this year, 358 cases were from

poverty-ridden Uttar Pradesh, where a combination of poverty,

illiteracy and superstitious beliefs has resulted in hundreds of

children going without immunisation and raised fears of a major

comeback of the paralyzing disease.

 

" Most of the cases are concentrated in one area. We have to find out

what went wrong, " Hota said Tuesday. " However, we are launching a

massive immunisation drive in the state in November. "

 

Over the weekend newspapers reported that four cases of polio had been

detected in New Delhi, and that all four were children who had

migrated to the Indian capital from Uttar Pradesh. Media reports have

also noted cases of polio surfacing in the neighboring states of

Punjab and Haryana, and as far afield as Maharashtra due to workers

migrating from Uttar Pradesh.

 

Polio usually infects children under age 5 through contaminated

drinking water. The virus attacks the central nervous system, causing

paralysis, muscular atrophy and deformation and, in some cases, death.

However, the disease can be prevented through doses of a vaccine

delivered to infants and toddlers as oral drops.

 

In 2004, India had come close to eliminating polio and had declared

2005 as the year when the country would be declared polio-free.

However, the disease has resurfaced, with nearly 90 per cent of the

cases detected in Uttar Pradesh.

 

India's Health Ministry has now set a new deadline of 2007 for ending

polio in the country.

 

Wiping it out from Uttar Pradesh, has been set as a priority task. For

years, rumors have swept the state's sizable Muslim population,

particularly among the poor and illiterate, that the polio vaccine is

actually a form of birth control and part of a Western plot to reduce

the Muslim birth rate.

 

But Indian health authorities say the focus of the new immunisation

drive will be reaching the densely populated villages of Uttar

Pradesh.

 

" If the world has to succeed on the polio front, India has to succeed.

If India has to succeed, Uttar Pradesh has to succeed, " Anbumani

Ramadoss, the Union Health Minister, told journalists recently.

 

India has drawn criticism from international health groups for the

slide back. The World Health Organization has identified India,

Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan as the countries where the disease

is yet to be controlled. Bangladesh reported nine new cases of the

disease this year.

 

The surge in polio cases in India is also bound to create

apprehensions in neighboring Sri Lanka where the crippling disease was

wiped out after years of sustained anti-polio campaigns.

 

Before 1988, when WHO launched a global anti-polio campaign, there

were more than 350,000 cases across the globe annually.

 

 

 

URL: http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=76062

[Guest guest]

From where did they get the 3,50,000 polio cases figure, before the WHO

campaign started? What is the break up?

 

Jagannath.

 

, Puneet <puneet.nospam

wrote:

>

> Authorities ring warning bells as polio spreads

[Guest guest]

Jagannath,

 

I live in the US. I notice people in India write numbers

differently. Is the number you wrote three hundred and fifty

thousand or three million, five hundred thousand or another number?

 

Thanks

GB

 

 

, " jagchat01 " <jagchat01

wrote:

>

>

> From where did they get the 3,50,000 polio cases figure, before

the WHO

> campaign started?