India faces travel advisory if failed to contain polio: Ramadoss

New Delhi, Jun 6 (UNI) Eventhough India has avoided an international travel advisory now asking people coming to the country and travelling outside to have compulsory immunisation against polio, the country faces a threat of it being imposed in future in case it failed to eradicate the crippling disease.

Addressing a review meeting of the health ministers of states affected by polio here, Dr Ramadoss said during the recent meeting of the World Health Assembly at Geneva there was a resolution that anyone travelling to and from India must have mandatory polio immunisation.

''We were very perturbed by the resolution as it would have been detrimental to India's economic growth,'' Dr Ramadoss said and informed that through concerted efforts the resolution was avoided this time, but the sword of Democles was still hanging if the country failed to contain polio.

''We are on a sticky wicket. It is time for us to act and put a final nail on the coffin of polio. Though the country has come a long way, we still need to take the final step to effectively eradicate polio and show the world,'' Dr Ramadoss told the state health ministers.

Earlier, such an advisory has been issued for Haj pilgrims coming from India.

Dr David Heyman of the WHO, Geneva who helped the country in avoiding the travel advisory at WHA this time, said such travel advisories were generally issued in the past for diseases like SARS so that people could avoid going to countries where such diseases were prevalent but the case of polio was different.

Giving the global perspective, he said about 193 countries at the World Health Assembly recently wanted such a resolution as they felt the spread of polio could pose a threat to countries which are free from the disease. The spread of polio from Nigeria to 18 other countries had resulted in the economic loss of 500 million dollars by the polio free countries to check the spread of the disease. Even the G-8 nations meeting would discuss the disease dueto its economic impact. At present polio cases have been reported in India, Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan so eradication of disease from India was crucial for global polio eradication efforts, he said.

Dr Ramadoss said India convinced the WHA that the government was committed to eradicate polio and for this purpose it has earmarked Rs 1300 crore for the polio eradication project alone which was equal to the money earmarked for nine national programmes for diseases like leprosy, TB etc and more than Rs 800 crore eradicated for HIV/AIDS. About 90 per cent of this amount this has been given by the central government from its own resources as many of the foreign donors have stopped contributing money for the programme now, he informed.

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