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September 20, 2002

INTERNATIONAL IMMUNIZATION NEWS

"Polio Eradication Focus Shifts to Northern India"

Reuters Health Information Services (www.reutershealth.com)

(09/19/02)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization report that efforts to eradicate polio in the 10-country Southeast Asia Region--which includes Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand--have stayed the course with more intensified programs.  Efforts have been stepped up in northern India, the only region where transmission rates continue to be a threat as the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have been identified as the foci of the epidemic and pose a considerable threat to Bangladesh and Nepal.  During the past two years, no polio cases have been reported in either Bangladesh or Nepal, but India reported 159 confirmed cases during the first six months of this year, in contrast to just 31 cases during the same period last year.  Earlier this year, the WHO declared Europe and Central Asia polio-free, adding them to the short list, including the Americas and Western Pacific, of regions where the disease has been eradicated.

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