Poli-free India is a monumental achievement
India's victory against polio is possibly the country's greatest public health achievement since the eradication of small pox. It is a tremendous success, a milestone in this nation's developmental history and, indeed, a source of inspiration for other countries in the global South still battling this debilitating disease. As Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organisation said, at the celebratory event organised by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in New Delhi on Tuesday, the “greatest lesson” from the Indian experience is that “there is no such thing as impossible”. India faced some of the toughest challenges for any polio-endemic country — widespread poverty, huge population pressure and a near-absent healthcare system. Over 2,00,000 cases of polio were being reported annually in India when the first oral polio vaccine was introduced here in 1985. It was not until another 10 years later that the first nation-wide polio immunisation programme was launched and then Heath Minister in the BJP’s Delhi Government, Dr Harshvardhan (who ironically was left out of the Tuesday celebration), made it a roaring success. less than two decades, a 131 polio campaigns and 1,210 crore polio drops later, India is now officially polio-free — with no new cases being reported in the three years since January 13, 2011, when five-year-old Rukhsar of West Bengal was diagnosed with polio-induced paralysis. The credit for the eradication goes in equal measure to the Government as well as the thousands of vaccinators who fought on a war-footing from the frontline. While the former took “ownership” of the project at every level — and this was as important as the crores of rupees it poured into the programme, according to Dr Chan — the latter beat insurmountable odds with their can-do attitude. Assisting both parties along the way were India's international partners who provided their expertise and support. Consequently, polio-control is one of India's best-executed healthcare programmes today, and the country's indigenous and innovative surveillance system surpasses all international standards.
This occasion for celebration must also be an opportunity to strengthen our defences as we prepare for the last phase in the war against polio. Called the ‘endgame', it will begin next year and probably last until 2018. In this period, the oral polio vaccine, made from a weakened but live polio virus, will possibly be replaced by an injectible polio vaccine made from killed viruses. In rare cases, when the OPV is administered to children with very low immunity, the virus regains its ability to cause disease. In 2013, five children developed vaccine-associated polio paralysis. The new IPV addresses this problem as the dead virus cannot cause new disease. Private medical facilities have already been using them for five years now. The IPV addresses could be introduced in the national immunisation programme once the Government sorts out the logistics.