Punjab reported 8 cases of polio in 2006

Hoshiarpur, Mar 9 (UNI) As many as eight cases of polio had been reported in Punjab last year, of which, six children had received adequate OPV vaccine doses while two were inadequately covered.

The detection had brought to notice that there was importation of Wild Polio-virus from Uttar Pradesh (UP) in seven districts of the state, Dr Rana Harinder, Director, Health and Family Welfare, Punjab, told reporter here.

Denying that the detection was a setback to the pulse-polio programme, he asserted it had rather been a result of good surveillance undertaken in the state.

He said out of these, one child in district Mohali was detected positive for Wild Polio-virus, wherein the child did not have paralytic polio.

In the current year, 11 cases of Wild Polio-virus had been detected in the country of which five were in Bihar, three in Uttar Pradesh and one each in Haryana, Maharashtea and Andhra Pradesh as on March 2, 2007, he said.

''There is no medicine or injection which can kill the Wild Polio-virus. It is the administration of OPV which displaces the hidden Wild Polio-virus from the intestines of the children into the environment wherein the wild virus dies within two days. To make vaccination against Polio, more effective, specific monovalent OPV has been introduced in the affected states. Accordingly, monovalent type of OPV is used in Punjab in this year's Pulse-Polio rounds, Dr Harinder said.

Polio-drops will be administered to more than 38 lakh children up to the age of five years under Intensified Pulse Polio Immunisation Campaign on March 11 and left out children will be covered during house visits on March 12 and 13. More than 70,000 personnel will provide the services across the state and special mobile teams will provide services in the urban slums, brick kilns and isolated areas, he said.

Besides, special booths will be set up at Bus Stands, Railway Stations, Mela (fair) and congregations sites to provide services to mobile children.'' Dr Rana Harinder said.

UNI