U.N.: Indian Anti-Polio Program Boosts Efforts To Wipe Out Disease By 2005

February 5, 2003

GENEVA (AP) -- Indian health authorities will boost international efforts to wipe out polio when they launch a campaign to immunize 165 million youngsters, U.N. officials said Wednesday.

The six-day program, which starts Sunday, will help achieve the goal of eradicating the crippling disease by 2005, said Dr. Carl Tinstman, a UNICEF polio expert.

Some 1.3 million health teams will try to vaccinate every unprotected child under 5 years.

"We're in a war against polio," Tinstman told reporters. "It's a war we're winning but it's not over yet."

"If we reach 95 or 96 percent of children during the campaign we will probably do it, but if we reach 85 percent we will have failed," he added. "It means knocking on every single door of every single home."

When the global campaign to eradicate polio was launched in 1988, the disease was endemic in 125 countries and hit 350,000 people a year. In 2002 it affected 1,866 people and was endemic in only seven nations - Nigeria, Niger, Egypt, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

Some 85 percent of current polio cases are in India, mainly in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, said senior World Heath Organization official Dr. Daniel Tarantola.

"This is the last main reservoir of polio in the world."

Despite previous smaller scale campaigns, 10-15 percent of Indian children are not vaccinated against polio, Tarantola said.

"That's a failure of the system," he added.

"We are at risk of seeing polio spread in areas where it's already been brought under control. There's a risk of spread within Asia and beyond Asia."

Tinstman said donor countries should come forward with more money for the worldwide polio eradication campaign. The international program currently is facing a US$295 million shortfall, he said.