Polio cases in India have nearly tripled in the first half of this year compared with the same period a year ago.

According to the National Polio Surveillance Project, run by the federal government and the World Health Organisation, 86 new cases were reported from January 2002 to June 2002, compared to 31 cases over the same period in 2001.

To be declared polio-free, a country must have no new cases of the disease for three consecutive years. So, India and the others must not show any new cases after December 31, 2002, to reach the 2005 goal.

In 1996, India launched an ambitious polio eradication programme costing nearly $300 million. A world record was set when, on a single day in January 1996, 93 million children were immunised against the dreaded disease.

According to Bob Keegan of the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the spike this year in India is likely to delay the 2005 goal by upto 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 immunisation division. “This is a setback in India, and it means that we’re going to see cases in India for another 12-18 months,” he said.

A total number of 480 new polio cases were reported worldwide in 2001. More than half the cases were in India, the rest in nine other countries. The United States, the Americas, Europe and the western Pacific region are all polio-free.

Dr Anubha Ghose, director for health, CARE -- the international humanitarian organisation -- stated that the new polio cases increased in the second half of the year. “India has been caught napping,” said Ghose. “At this rate, we will surely miss the 2005 deadline.”

In 1988, there were 350,000 new cases of polio in 125 countries.

Still, according to Christine McNab, a spokeswoman for the WHO, 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 268 cases in 2001.

Besides India, new cases of polio have surfaced in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Niger, Nigeria and Somalia.

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

For those already afflicted with the disease, it is a battle against old prejudices, as many Indians look down on polio patients.