Thanks for this great article. Yes, India is polio free. The model they established worked and continues to work: it takes Persistence - staying after the issue until it is subdued and eliminated; Innovation - going where the cases are, especially with the migrant population; Accountability -ensuring that all the administrators, supervisors and on-site workers involved are held accountable for their work; and Financing - a must to continue this work. Currently $US 2 billion needed to fund this year’s polio eradication campaign. If the three remaining polio endemic countries follow this model, they will be as successful as India has been. Congratulations to India. Larry Emrich, Polio survivor, Member of the Rotary Club of Ventura, and Rotary District 5240 Polio Chair.
Great article. Kudos to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) and India Program.
However, two points have been missed.
(1) India started with polio National immunization Days in 1995, 10 years after the global declaration of polio eradication. So India itself has taken 16 years (not 27) to knock out polio.
(2) The GPEI has continually researched and innovated on the right tools for eradication. Polio eradication started with the trivalent oral polio vaccine (tOPV), which changed to monovalent OPV (type 1 or type 3), which again changed to bi-valent OPV (types 1 & 3 together). Finally it was bivalent-OPV which delivered the knock-out punch.
A third key factor is the openness and readiness of Govt. of India to accept issues and address them even when faced with frank criticism.
My father had polio in 1917 at age three, was an early recipient of a three-quarters body cast and leg braces, and walked with a limp the rest of his life. Although we had had polio shots, my brothers and I were part of the test of the Sabin oral polio vaccine when it first went to full-scale trials. Before the double-blind trials were over the vaccine was declared to be so effective that everyone was given the real vaccine.
It is personal and heartwarming for me to see this disease being conquered in my lifetime. It is distressing to see some people refusing vaccinations of various sorts in this country. It would be sadly ironic if polio resurfaced here after being eradicated in second and third world countries.
Kudos to the Government of India. I hope Americans, including our government leaders, pay attention and continue to press for full vaccinations here for polio and other communicable diseases.
Its a good article, on how a huge country like ours became polio free, but we still have a long way to go, devloping countries like Brazil, Mexico attained polio eradication before us, China with its huge population attained polio free status befor us.We are reaching there, but we still have a long way to go. Once eradication is done, the next problem arises with switch from Sabin’s OPV to Salk’s IPV which is crucial . I hope India goes IPV soon enough . Salute to our health workers , volunteers for working tirelessly to make the eradication dream come true.
COMMENTS
BY Larry E, Rotary
ON May 29, 2012 06:17 PM
Thanks for this great article. Yes, India is polio free. The model they established worked and continues to work: it takes Persistence - staying after the issue until it is subdued and eliminated; Innovation - going where the cases are, especially with the migrant population; Accountability -ensuring that all the administrators, supervisors and on-site workers involved are held accountable for their work; and Financing - a must to continue this work. Currently $US 2 billion needed to fund this year’s polio eradication campaign. If the three remaining polio endemic countries follow this model, they will be as successful as India has been. Congratulations to India. Larry Emrich, Polio survivor, Member of the Rotary Club of Ventura, and Rotary District 5240 Polio Chair.
BY A S Bose
ON August 9, 2012 06:34 PM
Great article. Kudos to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) and India Program.
However, two points have been missed.
(1) India started with polio National immunization Days in 1995, 10 years after the global declaration of polio eradication. So India itself has taken 16 years (not 27) to knock out polio.
(2) The GPEI has continually researched and innovated on the right tools for eradication. Polio eradication started with the trivalent oral polio vaccine (tOPV), which changed to monovalent OPV (type 1 or type 3), which again changed to bi-valent OPV (types 1 & 3 together). Finally it was bivalent-OPV which delivered the knock-out punch.
A third key factor is the openness and readiness of Govt. of India to accept issues and address them even when faced with frank criticism.
BY Stephen Maack
ON August 11, 2012 09:17 PM
My father had polio in 1917 at age three, was an early recipient of a three-quarters body cast and leg braces, and walked with a limp the rest of his life. Although we had had polio shots, my brothers and I were part of the test of the Sabin oral polio vaccine when it first went to full-scale trials. Before the double-blind trials were over the vaccine was declared to be so effective that everyone was given the real vaccine.
It is personal and heartwarming for me to see this disease being conquered in my lifetime. It is distressing to see some people refusing vaccinations of various sorts in this country. It would be sadly ironic if polio resurfaced here after being eradicated in second and third world countries.
Kudos to the Government of India. I hope Americans, including our government leaders, pay attention and continue to press for full vaccinations here for polio and other communicable diseases.
BY neha sharma
ON May 15, 2013 04:42 PM
Its a good article, on how a huge country like ours became polio free, but we still have a long way to go, devloping countries like Brazil, Mexico attained polio eradication before us, China with its huge population attained polio free status befor us.We are reaching there, but we still have a long way to go. Once eradication is done, the next problem arises with switch from Sabin’s OPV to Salk’s IPV which is crucial . I hope India goes IPV soon enough . Salute to our health workers , volunteers for working tirelessly to make the eradication dream come true.