New Delhi Dec. 30. Two startling findings by scientists of the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) here have given a jolt to the national polio eradication programme. Health authorities are trying to confirm these findings before making them public or taking action.

While investigating a disease outbreak in Gombli village in Tamil Nadu, NICD scientists have detected polio "antibodies" in goats implying that goats can get involved in the cycle of transmission overthrowing the current notion that humans are the only host of polio virus. More ominous is the second finding in which they isolated polio (vaccine) virus from the adults of the same village who had developed paralysis and died. According to NICD, subsequent analysis by the Entero-Viruses Research Centre in Mumbai showed it to be a mutated form of the strain currently used in the vaccination programme suggesting that the vaccine strain has reverted to the wild type.

A Health Ministry official said the report about the finding was "unconfirmed''.

PTI

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