Polio resurface in K'taka after a gap of three years

Bangalore, Dec 5 (UNI) Health officials have taken up an intense immunisation programme in the city and Ramanagar district following detection of Polio case in the city.

This is first time a polio case was being detected after a gap of three years. Last time polio cases were detected in Bellary district in 2003 and the state had been declared polio free since 2004.

In the wake of the latest case a Special Immunisation programme has been launched by the State government in association with Rotary International on December nine in the two places.

A two-year-old boy belonging to a nomadic tribal family from Uttar Pradesh was diagnosed to be afflicted with P3 wild polio virus.

The case came to light on November 29 when the child identified as Zeeshan, who has been hospitalised in the city as it suffered from fever. It was suspected to have contacted the disease at his birthplace in Faizabad district of UP and his two legs had been paralysed, crippling the victim for life, health officials said.

The family which lived in a slum near Yashwantpur had since fled the place.

"We have taken up oral immunisation in the hutment in Yaswantpur where 64 families live with 78 children. These children had not been covered earlier in the immunisation programme. The victim's stool had been sent to National Institute of Virology in the city," Narayana Holla, surveillance Medical officer, National Polio Surveillance Project under WHO said.

UNI