UP Govt claim falls flat in face of new polio cases

Vijay Upadhyay

AGRA. The UP Government may be making tall claims of polio eradication from the State, which is most affected by the disease, but for 1-year-old Reshma, number 13 onthe polio patients' list in the State, the claims mean nothing.
A resident of Islam Nagar village in the Khandoli area of Agra, Reshma was detected with polio recently, after she complained of weakness in her legs. She had been administered a total of six doses of pulse polio vaccine and yet her stool tested positive for polio, putting a question mark on the pulse-polio drive in this district.
The appearance of a polio patient in Agra almost three years after the district had been declared "polio-free" by the UP health department has made the WHO raise questions on the veracity of the claims made by the State health authorities on the success of the pulse-polio campaign in UP. The authorities in turn are questioning the authenticity of Reshma's stool test.
According to Agra District Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshanlal, Reshma could not be suffering from polio as she was being regularly administered pulse-polio vaccines and so far had received six polio vaccines, of which, three doses were of monovalent type, found to be effective in eliminating the P1 type polio virus with which the girl has been allegedly found affected.
Questioning the authenticity of the stool test report, Dr Lal said two monovalent pulse polio doses were administered to the girl on May 15 & June 28 and the stool sample was taken on June 29 which was bound to contain the polio virus delivered by the vaccine and it was what the Mumbai laboratory should have found.
The laboratory claims to have found wild virus in the stool which is hardly credible. Still, he said, the health department was analysing the possible causes of this affliction and even if it really is a case of polio, it had possibly been "imported" from some other district of the State since Agra has been completely free from polio for three years now. As per the CMO's claims, Reshma's case is an anomaly as Agra was declared polio free back in 2003; ever since, there had been no new case.
The Agra division has become a flashpoint for the WHO, as two cases of Polio have already been discovered in Firozabad and Etah districts of the division this year. Reshma is the third victim, challenging the WHO's target of complete worldwide polio eradication by the end of 2005.
Notably, the UP Government had suspended three medical officials of the Firozabad district, including the CMO in 2004 for administering "expired" polio vaccines to more than 5,000 children, but the laxity in pulse-polio campaign continues.
(UNITED NEWS NETWORK)
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