Polio cases in India have dropped: WHO
Agence France-Presse
Geneva, February 6
The number of polio cases has dropped by 45 per cent in India, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the three countries on the Asian continent that still have the disease, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said in Geneva on Friday.
The three were on target to end polio transmission this year, a statement predicted following a meeting at WHO headquarters in Geneva with senior officials from the three countries.
"Last year, polio cases in Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan were slashed by 45 per cent," it said.
"Similar momentum this year should put an end to the transmission of polio in this particularly crowded corner of the world, which has proven a challenge to global eradication efforts."
The Geneva session finessed plans for the rest of this year for mass, repeated vaccination campaigns in areas of the three countries, where the disease still survives.
The accent will be on treating children in communities, otherwise disadvantaged in terms of health care.
"Similar action last year paid off in shrinking the geographic footprint of the poliovirus and in falling numbers of affected children," the statement said.
The overall number of cases in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India had declined from 336 in the year 2003 to 186 last year.
"The poliovirus is currently cornered in only six of the 51 states and provinces within the three countries," said Bill Sergeant, Chair of the International PolioPlus Committee of Rotary International, the humanitarian service organisation that championed the charge to eradicate polio.
During vaccination campaigns in 2004 in the three countries, 1.5 billion doses were administered to 210 million children. As many as 21 additional vaccination drives are to be organised in the whole region this year.
Millions of volunteer workers will take part in door-to-door visits to vaccinate all children under five years of age.
The meeting in Geneva occurred on the first anniversary of the Geneva Declaration on the Eradication of Poliomyelitis.
The worldwide initiative to eradicate polio launched more than 16 years ago is a public sector-private sector partnership run by WHO, Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the UN children's agency UNICEF.
© HT Media Ltd. 2004.