This is the second post to go up tonight. It is about some fantastic news. Today, India celebrated a year with no new reported Poliomyelitis cases. If no new cases are discovered in the next two years, polio will only be endemic in Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan. The program was a cooperative effort from WHO, UNICEF, Rotary International, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Indian Government. It costs $300 million a year to run.
In 1985 the Northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar had 150,000 cases of polio between them. By 2010, this had fallen to just 42. In 2010, a more effective Oral Polio Vaccine was introduced. Some want India to change to the injectable polio vaccine. Only one person was infected in 2010, an 18-month old girl named Ruksana Khatun.
An Indian child receives a dose of Oral Polio Vaccine
The elimination of polio from India is another success story for vaccination. It is hoped that the other three countries in which it is still endemic will be able to eliminate it.
