WHO officer visits Dasuya over polio case

Hoshiarpur, Sep 27 (UNI) Following the detection of polio virus in a two-year-old son of a migrant labourer, a WHO official rushed today to Dasuya to check the case even as a massive ''mop up'' operation was announced by health authorities in the area as a preventive measure.

Dr Yangchan Dolma, Surveillance Medical Officer of the World Health Organisation however, could not meet the sick boy Jatinder, as he had gone with his vegetable-seller parents to the market.

Dr Dolma, who was accompanied by Dr V. K. Goyal, State Immunisation Officer and Dr Kamaljit Kaur, Civil Surgeon, decided to stay back in the town and instructed the district health authorities to increase surveillance and administer polio drops to the children of the area.

Dr Goyal said a three-day massive drive would be launched from October 15 in Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur, Jalandhar, Nawanshahar and Kapurthala districts to ensure that polio drops were administered to all the children of these districts from zero to five years of age.

Giving details of the affected boy, Dr K Goyal told UNI that Jatinder was admitted in Civil Hospital, Dasuya on August 18 after he returned from a trip to Uttar Pradesh's Badayun district, where 200 cases of polio virus had been detected during the current year.

The boy, whose right lower limb has become weak, apparently acquired the polio virus from there. The Central Research Institute, Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh, has now confirmed the polio virus while Jatinder was discharged from the Hospital on August 23, 2006.

So far this year, at least 326 fresh cases of polio had been detected out od which 291 were in UP, 19 in Bihar, five in Haryana, three in Uttranchal, two each in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and one each in Jharkhand, West Bengal and Punjab, Dr Goyal said.

UNI XC JN PM RK1855