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By NEELESH MISRA, Associated Press Writer
NEW DELHI, India (AP) - Polio ( news - web sites) 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.
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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 ( news - web sites), 86 new cases were reported from January through June this year — compared to 31 cases over the same period last year.
The total 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 polio cases increase in the second half of the year, during India's rainy season.
"India has been caught napping," Ghose said Monday. "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 ( news - web sites), 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 activities continue and 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.
McNab said India should be "extremely proud of its efforts ... in eradicating polio." She pointed to the "remarkable decline" from the 1980s, when Indian 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.
In 1996, India, a sprawling nation of more than 1 billion people, launched an ambitious eradication program that has cost nearly $300 million, the government says. India set a world record when, on a single day in January 1996, 93 million children were immunized.
The optimists say the discovery of new cases in India shows awareness of the disease is spreading and once-hidden cases are now emerging.
But the spike in numbers may also reflect the difficulties faced by tens of thousands of campaigners in trying to reach children for immunization.
Health workers have reported cases of parents hiding their children to avoid the polio drops.
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.
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.
Elsewhere, parents fear vaccines may lead to illness or even death. In the state of Assam, 16 children died and hundreds fell ill after they were administered doses of Vitamin A in a UNICEF ( news - web sites)-sponsored anti-blindness campaign. Though it was later determined the vitamin doses were not to blame, the stigma stuck.
For those already afflicted with the disease, it is a battle against old prejudices, as many Indians look down on polio patients.
But some are fighting back.
As the sun made a clay field sizzle at a New Delhi school recently, two dozen children squealed as they played basketball.
Subhash, 10, began his daily challenge to the disease that has disabled him and 20 million other Indians.
He threw away his crutches and ran for the ball.
"It hurts, but I can also run. I can also win," he said.
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