Today ,two doctors arrived at my place and inquired about kids for immunization for polio .The programme aims to eradicate polio from India by immunizing every child under five years of age with the oral polio vaccine. India, together with Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan, is one of the four polio-endemic countries left in the world.Tremendous progress has been made in the last few years to interrupt polio transmission in India. The number of polio cases dropped to a record low of 42 in 2010 compared with 741 in 2009.
a child's. (or adult's) body through the mouth.... Polio used to
be very common in the United States. It invades the nervous
system, and can cause total paralysis in a matter of hours. ...It
is a contagious, historically devastating disease that was
virtually eliminated from the Western hemisphere in the second
half of the 20th century.To date, in 2011, India has had only
one case of polio, in January in Howrah district of west Bengal.
Ten years ago all seemed to be going well with poliomyelitis eradication. The number of polio cases globally had dropped by 99% from an estimated 350,000 in 1988 to fewer than 500 in 2001.But getting rid of the last 1% of cases over the past decade has been a roller-coaster ride including ridding whole nations of the disease and flare-ups in previously polio-free countries.
During house-to-house visits with UNICEF to communities in Uttar Pradesh, They were sometimes told there were no children present, only to hear a baby crying in a back room. Other families closed their windows and doors when they heard vaccinators approaching. One vaccinator showed scratches on her arms where household members had physically resisted immunization. Although mothers were often the ones to say no to health workers, their reasons for doing so often pointed to the influence of a husband or a powerful mother-in-law.For the last leg of the race to eradicate polio, health workers must engage marginalized communities and listen to local concerns before pushing ahead with a strategy.
