Polio eradication gets a setback in Delhi

Amitabh Shukla
New Delhi, December 25

The pulse polio eradication programme has received a severe setback in the national Capital with the detection of the second polio case in the year. With this, the government is at the receiving end with questions being asked on the efficacy of the high voltage drive for polio eradication.

Suhail, a resident of Seemapuri in north east Delhi, aged 2 years and 2 months, was detected with the P-III virus of polio. The child was admitted to GTB Hospital in the last week of November. A series of tests were conducted and after the reports came, he was declared to be a case of polio early this week. Suhail’s father runs a butcher shop in the area and his family told the team of investigators that polio shots were administered to the child in the past.

Delhi Health Minister Yoganand Shastri is shocked. “We will intensify the campaign now. We would ensure that the teams go to every nook and corner of the city to administer the polio drops,” the minister told HT.

Harish Verma, regional coordinator of the pulse polio eradication programme in north India of the WHO, said uniformly good immunisation might not have taken place all over the city. Asked how could polio resurface in a developed city like Delhi, Verma said as long as polio exists anywhere in the country, it can come to Delhi too.

Officials in Delhi government said the place where Suhail lives is hardly 200 metres from Ghaziabad border. “In Ghaziabad 34 cases of polio have been detected this year alone,” said an official in the Health Department. However the father of the affected child is a resident of Delhi for long and has not migrated to the city in recent years. “When a case comes up we try to find the reason and verify whether it was due to lack of coverage. If someone refuses to take the polio drops what can we do?” asked the official.

The year 2002 was the worst for Delhi in terms of polio cases. The surveillance teams had detected a high of 27 cases that year. Since then, the cases have come down with 2003 recording 3 cases, 2 cases in 2004, only 1 in 2005 and 7 cases in 2006. (2007)