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With rising polio cases, India dashes global hopes
IANS
MORADABAD (UTTAR PRADESH): Amit, 12,
watches every step as he walks, conscious that he must be careful as he carries
his younger brother Vinit, 10, on his back.
Stricken with polio, Vinit's flaccid muscles have ensured that he will never
have the strength to move without help.
Scattered across villages in J P Nagar and Moradabad districts of Uttar Pradesh
are many such human faces of the polio virus, demonstrating the physical,
emotional and economic costs of the debilitating disease.
Poliomyelitis, better known as polio, is an ancient disease with the most common
evidence being a withered leg. And it's back in media focus in India as another
national immunisation day (NID) to check polio arrives Sunday.
Frantic efforts, involving billions of people and dollars, have been made to
ensure a global polio-free certificate by 2005. To be declared polio-free, a
country must not report any new cases for three years.
India should not have reported any new cases after December 31, 2002, as the
government resolved to eradicate polio by that date, but it did.
"These new infections are threatening the security of the world. I can't
emphasise it more. The only solution is coverage. This is the last leg of the
battle and it must be won in India," said Yves Bergevin, head of Unicef's global
health division.
Uttar Pradesh alone is home to 80-85 percent of the world's polio cases. New
cases have also been reported in Orissa, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and
Gujarat.
Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare A. Raja told IANS: "The pulse
polio immunisation programme started in December 1995. The number of polio cases
declined from 3,200 in 1995 to 268 during 2001."
The virus enters through the mouth and multiplies in the throat and intestines.
Symptoms include fever, fatigue, headaches and vomiting. It can strike at any
age but affects mainly children under three.
It cannot be cured but only be prevented.
Former health minister Shatrughan Sinha told Parliament in December last year:
"The reasons for increase in the number of polio cases in the country,
particularly in Uttar Pradesh, are because 10-15 percent children are being
missed in each round, resulting in sustained transmission of polio virus in the
community."
Under the pulse polio immunisation programme, NIDs cover an estimated 160
million children. For two days, booths are set up all over the country and oral
polio vaccine is administered free of cost to children.
This year, the first NID was on January 5 while the second will be on February
9.
As volunteers, the Unicef has recruited nearly 3,000 mobilisers, or
"influencers," mostly women, who cajole and coax reluctant families to immunise
their children.
Social workers, government officials and international health experts have been
holding regular meetings with religious leaders of all faiths, asking them to
help spread the message about polio and the importance of taking the oral
vaccine.
Maulana Kalbe Jawwad, a Shia cleric in Uttar Pradesh, told IANS: "Yes, we can
spread the message because even the Quran ordains that we have to fight the
disease."
Volunteers and health workers, however, say they lack people's cooperation.
One health worker said, "Many people don't understand what polio is. They
believe it can be cured. So they say they give medicine later when a child falls
ill."
Some claim they have compelling reasons for not going to the polio booth.
Ashfaq Ahmad, a father of eight, reasons: "I am a daily labourer. I can't waste
time taking my children to a booth. And I can't wait at home for the vaccinators
to come with the medicine. I will lose my wages."
But then, the clock is ticking. And so is a crippling disease.
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