India battles polio virus from Pakistan

India battles polio virus from Pakistan

NEW DELHI: It's cross-border terror of a different kind. India is on high alert against the deadly polio virus coming into the country from Pakistan and the health ministry has asked the Punjab government to mandatorily vaccinate all children aged 0-5 years coming to India from Pakistan.

Booths have been set up at the Wagah border for people coming from Pakistan by foot or by the Indo-Pak bus service. Immunization officers have also been pressed into duty at the Attari station for passengers taking the train from Pakistan. The booths will administer polio drops every day for the next four months, considered to be the high transmission time for the contagious virus.

Pakistan till now has recorded 84 cases of polio of which 83 are of the P1 strain - the most dangerous since it travels faster and infects more people.

India raised the alarm after China confirmed that polio had re-entered its territory after a gap of 10 years. Genetic analysis showed that four infants in China's Xinjiang province were infected with polio virus imported from Pakistan.

Punjab's immunization officer Dr Balwinder Singh told TOI, "We received instructions from the Centre on Friday to set up polio vaccination booths at the Wagah border and the Attari station. All children aged 0-5 years coming into India, irrespective of whether they have been vaccinated or not, will be administered the bivalent polio vaccine. This campaign will continue for the next four months with two teams manning Attari and Wagah in shifts."

India's polio campaign has generated remarkable results this year, recording just one case. In fact, it has now been more than eight months since India reported its only polio case - January 13 in West Bengal. The ministry is worried that an imported case can destroy all the good work. Punjab has been polio free since 2009.

The ministry has also alerted states like Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Punjab against polio after the China outbreak.

China is a formerly cleared area and has been polio free for 10 years -- its last indigenous case was in 1994, and its very last case - imported that time from India - was in 1999. That importation was quelled by wholesale vaccination. After the recent outbreak, the Chinese government has decided to immunize 4.5 million children in Hotan and neighboring districts affected by the virus.

India's sub-national immunization days (SNIDs), planned to take place this month, will vaccinate more than 75 million children.

"Earlier, the polio cases in Pakistan were in their far north region, closer to Afghanistan. But the recent polio cases have been reported from close to the Indian border, hence the panic," said a ministry official.

Pakistan has planned staggered SNIDs using the bivalent polio vaccine from September 19-21, covering all of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and parts of Balochistan, Gilgit-Baltistan, Islamabad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh. A total of 21.3 million children in 93 districts of the country will be targeted -- 62 districts will be entirely covered while in 31 districts, high risk areas and populations will be targeted. Twenty-two districts of Sindh, currently affected by torrential rain and flooding, have postponed the round until September 26. Karachi may also delay implementation of the round.

Graphic info

Number of polio cases globally till date in 2011 - 380
Polio cases in endemic countries - 130
Polio cases in non-endemic countries -- 250
Pakistan - 84
Afghanistan - 19
Nigeria - 26
India - 1
China - 7
Chad - 112
Congo - 77

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