While maintaining that no polio case has been reported in the country since 2011, Union Health Ministry has initiated a probe into a suspected polio case detected in Balrampur in Uttar Pradesh on Friday as a preventive measure. This is the second suspected case in a week, the first one was in Telangana where virus strain was found in sewage water.
The Centre has maintained that it probes thousands of such cases every year and none of them have been found to be of polio and the child in this particular case has been tested and kept under observation.
“A 6-year-old child of Padrauna village in Gaisdi was admitted to a hospital, where doctors suspect that he is suffering from polio. Further checkups are on,” District hospital superintendent S I Zaidi said.
“We are awaiting his test reports. WHO has also been intimated about it,” he said.
The World Health Organisation India Country Office, when asked about the suspected polio case in Balrampur said, "There is no 'case' (paralysed child) from VDPV in Balrampur as is being reported in some sections of the media."
Health Ministry sources said the child is still under observation and the test reports have been sent to the laboratory and within 2-3 weeks, the results are expected to come.
However preliminary investigations suggests that the child has been administered 20 doses of polio vaccination.
Senior Health Ministry officials said that nearly 55,000 tests of Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP), which determines whether it's a Vaccine-derived polioviruses or wild polio, are conducted every year and all of them have turned out to be non-polio AFP.
"All AFP cases by default gets investigated in the country. It's a standard protocol which the Ministry is following. Balrampur (case) is also one of the cases which is also being investigated.
"Since January 13, 2011 we have been picking up 45,000-55,000 AFP cases every year. All of them have turned out to be non-polio AFP. Since 2011, there has been no polio cases," Pradeep Haldar, Deputy commissioner, Immunisation, Health Ministry said.