Here is a bit of good news, for a change. It has been almost three years since there has been a case of polio in India. Once India has been confirmed to be polio free for three years, the disease will be considered eradicated in India. I read this story in the Times of India.
India marked three years since its last reported polio case Monday, meaning it will soon be certified as having defeated the ancient scourge in a huge advance for global eradication efforts.
India’s polio programme is one of the country’s biggest public health success stories, achieving something once thought impossible thanks to a massive and sustained vaccination programme.
Health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, along with global groups who have been working to eradicate the virus, hailed Monday’s anniversary as “a monumental milestone”.
“We have completed a full three years without a single polio case and I’m sure that in the future there won’t be any polio cases,” Azad told reporters in the capital.
Smiling and flashing a V for victory sign, he added: “I think this is great news not just for India but the entire globe.”
With the number of cases in decline in Nigeria and Afghanistan, two of only three countries where polio is still endemic, world efforts to consign the crippling virus to history are making steady progress.
“In 2012, there were the fewest numbers of cases in endemic countries as ever before. So far in 2013 (records are still being checked), there were even less,” Hamid Jafari, global polio expert at the World Health Organization, told AFP.
“If the current trends of progress continue we could very easily see the end of polio in Afghanistan and Nigeria in 2014.”
This is wonderful news. It is too bad that India’s neighbor Pakistan does not share India’s good fortune.
There are also reasons for caution in India, with the virus still considered endemic in neighbouring Pakistan, where vaccinators are being killed by the Taliban which views them as possible spies.
A fake vaccination programme was used by the CIA to provide cover for operatives tracking al-Qaida chief Osama Bin Laden, who was killed in Pakistan by US special forces in May 2011.
It is unfortunate that the CIA decided to use that particular cover for its operatives, although I understand that the Taliban believes vaccination to be un-Islamic and would probably be killing vaccinators anyway.
Related articles
- Why Today Made History For India And The World (urbantimes.co)
- Why oral polio vaccination must for India-bound Pakistanis (thehindu.com)
- India set for polio-free landmark (bbc.co.uk)
- Polio’s Comeback (davidscommonplacebook.wordpress.com)
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