News Updates for 13th january 2012

• The Hindu : Health / Policy & Issues : How India went from 741 cases to zero in just two years
  • nation had to overcome tremendous challenges to get here – not least of them, a huge population, the logistics of covering a vast geographical area, poor sanitation and infrastructure, resistance among some groups of people to taking the vaccine, and children of migrant communities who were difficult to cover.
  • Expanded Immunisation Programme in the late 1970s
  • 1985, it became a part of the Universal Immunisation Programme launched
  • National Pulse Polio Initiative (PPI) in 1995-96, targeting coverage of every child under five in the country with the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) to be given on two National Immunisation Days, one each in December and January
  • PPI set for the nation a new target — eradication of polio by 2005.
  • involved better social mobilisation through involvement of millions of frontline workers from the private health sector, members of Rotary International, volunteers, anganwadi workers, besides the massive public health workforce
  • PPI created systems – cold chains for storage and transportation of the vaccines, ensuring vaccine vial monitors on each vial, follow up and mop up campaigns to track children left out during immunisation days.
  • In each PPI, 24 lakh vaccinators visit over 20 crore households to ensure that nearly 17.2 crore children, less than five years, are immunised with the OPV
  • Pockets of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were still endemic
  • government targeted 107 ‘high risk' blocks in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and identified the challenges, which included remote locations, refusal of vaccine in some areas, and migrating populations.
  • ‘Influencers', including religious leaders, were enlisted and tracked for each high risk area, and this helped polio teams reach more families.
  • UP and Bihar have not reported any case of polio since April 2010, and September 2010, respectively.
  • t there was no room for complacency, with the nation having to maintain its zero-cases record for the next three years to be able to totally ‘eradicate' poliomyelitis.
  • greatest concern is the possibility of infections carried across borders by migrating populations
  • Pakistan and Afghanistan both saw alarming increases in polio cases, and poliovirus from Pakistan re-infected China (which had been polio-free since 1999)
  • In Africa, active polio transmission continues in Nigeria, Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with outbreaks in West and Central Africa in the past 12 months