India marked a year since its last case of polio yesterday, a major milestone in a country once considered the epicentre of the disease and one that gives hope of eradicating the scourge worldwide.
We are excited and hopeful, at the same time, vigilant and alert
The country had 150,000 polio cases in 1985, but a huge government campaign backed by donor money has led the number of infections to plummet – into double figures in 2010 and finally zero in the last 12 months.
India, which until recently accounted for half of all the polio cases in the world, is one of four countries where the highly contagious virus is still officially endemic alongside Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria.
If all laboratory tests return negative in January, India will follow recent success stories Niger and Egypt and be removed from the endemic list by the World Health Organisation by mid-February.
There was cautious optimism in New Delhi as health workers and the government celebrated while at the same time stressing that sustained efforts were required to prevent another outbreak.
“We are excited and hopeful, at the same time, vigilant and alert,” Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said in a statement for the occasion.
Polio – which afflicts mainly the under-fives causing death, paralysis and crippled limbs – travels easily across borders and is transmitted via the faecal matter of victims.
India has been a frequent exporter to other developing countries, but has also been re-infected from abroad.
The last new case in India was detected on January 13 last year when an 18-month-old girl, from an impoverished Muslim family, fell sick in a slum near Kolkata, the capital of the state of West Bengal.
“Her condition is improving. She can walk now,” chief medical officer from the district, Swati Dutta, said.
Since this case, there has been another vast effort to immunise the nation’s children, with 2.3 million vaccinators fanning out to deliver 900 million doses in home visits and special camps. Another important factor was a new, more efficient oral vaccine introduced in 2010.
The success in combating polio was attributed by Unicef to the commitment of the Indian government, which has spent $2 billion over the last 10-15 years on polio eradication efforts.
The Rotary International charity, which kickstarted the global fight against polio in the 1980s, and more recently the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have contributed about $1 billion each worldwide.