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India's hopes to eradicate polio hit snag

By Neelesh Misra, Associated Press, 8/13/2002

EW DELHI - Polio cases in India have nearly tripled in the first half of this year compared with the same period a year ago, a jump that could set back the world's drive to wipe out the crippling virus by 2005.

The new figures were dismaying for India, which only two decades ago saw tens of thousands afflicted with polio every year, but was now thought to be on the last lap in the race to wipe out the disease after an ambitious immunization campaign.

According to the National Polio Surveillance Project, run by the federal government and the World Health Organization, 86 new cases were reported from January through June this year - compared with 31 cases over the same period last year.

The number of new cases for 2002 could end up being triple the 268 reported last year, said Dr. Anubha Ghose, India's director for health at the international humanitarian organization CARE. New cases increase in the second half of the year, during India's rainy season.

''India has been caught napping,'' Ghose said yesterday. ''At this rate, we will surely miss the 2005 deadline.''

A total 480 new polio cases were reported worldwide last year - more than half in India and the rest in nine other nations. The United States, the Americas, Europe, and the western Pacific region are all polio-free.

In 1988, when the world launched its drive to eradicate the disease, there were 350,000 new cases in 125 countries. WHO and other international organizations have led the drive to eliminate the disease by 2005.

Besides India, new cases have been found this year in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Niger, Nigeria and Somalia, according to WHO. To be declared polio-free, a country must have no new cases for three years. So India and the others must show no new cases after Dec. 31, 2002, to reach the 2005 goal.

A WHO spokeswoman said that was still possible. ''If ... the immunizations that we've got planned for after the high-transmission season go well, there is always this possibility,'' Christine McNab said from WHO headquarters in Geneva.

However, Bob Keegan of the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control said the spike this year in India is likely to delay the 2005 goal by up to a year.

''We certainly were hoping to eradicate polio from India this year, and there's a great disappointment that we're not going to be able to do that,'' said Keegan, deputy director of the CDC's global immunization division. ''This is a setback in India, and it means that we're going to see cases in India for another 12 to 18 months.''

Still, McNab said India should be ''extremely proud of its efforts.'' She pointed to the ''remarkable decline'' from the 1980s, when India had as many as 200,000 new cases a year, to 2001's 268 cases.

Polio usually strikes children under the age of 5. It can cripple the spinal cord and brain, causing paralysis and, in some cases, death. It is transmitted through food or water contaminated by the fecal matter of an infected person.

The increase may also reflect the difficulties faced by tens of thousands of campaigners in trying to reach children for immunization.

In some rural areas, Muslim clerics tell their brethren to shun the vaccine, calling it evil and part of a conspiracy by the Hindu-dominated government to limit the birth rate of Muslims, India's largest minority. Keegan said 90 percent of new polio cases were in the majority Muslim state of Andhra Pradesh.

The complaints became so widespread that the most senior Muslim cleric in India's largest mosque in New Delhi had to issue an appeal to get Muslim children vaccinated.

This story ran on page A10 of the Boston Globe on 8/13/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.