Pulse Polio Immunization 2022: Date, age, commonly asked questions with answers

New Delhi, Feb 26: Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Saturday launched Polio National Immunization Day, as part of National Immunization Drive. He administered polio drops to children less than five years old.

Date, Age, All You Need To Know

The drive will be held across the country on Sunday, February 27, and crores of children below the age of five will be vaccinated against polio while adhering to Covid-19 norms like wearing face masks, maintaining social distancing and sanitizing hands.

India conducts one nationwide NID and two Sub-National Immunisation Days (SNIDs) for polio every year to maintain population immunity against wild poliovirus and to sustain its polio-free status.

During the polio NID, over 15 crore children will be covered across all 36 states and Union territories in 735 districts. During the drive, polio drops will be provided to children through seven lakh booths across the country.

Approximately 23.6 crore houses will be visited by nearly 24 lakh volunteers and 1.5 lakh supervisors. Meghalaya has already conducted the drive on January 24, while Mizoram plans to conduct it on March 1 due to local reasons. The election-bound states of Uttar Pradesh and Manipur plan to organise the polio NID on March 20 and March 24 respectively.

The booth activities will be followed by house-to-house surveillance (mop-up rounds) over the next two to five days to identify and vaccinate children who missed getting vaccinated at the booths. Vaccination teams have also been deployed at bus terminals, railway stations, airports and ferry crossings to vaccinate children in transit to ensure that no child misses the life-saving dose.

Polio (poliomyelitis) mainly affects children under 5 years of age, with 1 in 200 infections leading to irreversible paralysis. Among those paralysed, nearly 5% die when their breathing muscles become immobilized, as per World Health Organisation (WHO).

In 1988, the Forty-first World Health Assembly adopted a resolution for the worldwide eradication of polio. It marked the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), spearheaded by national governments, WHO, Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, UNICEF, and partners like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

Since the drive was launched, it has led to cases due to wild poliovirus decreasing globally by over 99% since 1988, from an estimated 350 000 cases then, to 160 in 2020, as per the WHO.

Pulse Polio in India

The Pulse Polio Immunization Programme was rolled out in India on 2 October 1994, when India accounted for around 60% of the global polio cases. The last polio case in India was reported a decade ago in Howrah on 13 January 2011, and the country has been free of polio.

India received a 'Polio-free certification' along with the entire South-East Asia Region on the 27 March 2014.

Commonly Asked Questions About Polio with Answers from WHO:

What is polio?

Poliomyelitis (polio) is a highly infectious disease caused by a wild poliovirus that can be of any of 3 serological types (type 1, 2 or 3). It invades the nervous system, and can cause paralysis or even death in a matter of hours.

How is polio transmitted?

Polio enters the body through the mouth, in water or food that has been contaminated with faecal material from an infected person. The virus multiplies in the intestine and is excreted by the infected person in faeces, which can pass on the virus to others.

Who is at risk of polio?

Polio mainly affects children under the age of five years, although adults can be also susceptible to the virus at a later stage of their life if the sero protection level is not high enough.

What are the effects of polio?

The effects of polio are:

• As many as one in every 200 persons infected with polio suffers from irreversible paralysis
  (usually in the legs).
• Among those paralyzed, 5% to 10% die when their breathing muscles are immobilized by the
  virus.

Is there a cure for polio?

No, there is no cure for polio. Polio can only be prevented by immunization.

Is it possible to prevent polio?

Yes, two safe and effective vaccines exist - the oral polio vaccine (OPV) that is attenuated and the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) that contains killed viruses. Both are globally used but OPV remains the vaccine of choice used by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) from the World Health Organization (WHO) to assure essential protection for children against polio in areas where the virus is endemic or re-emergent. The WHO expanded programme of immunization (EPI) recommends a 4 dose schedule at birth, 6, 10 and 14 weeks. Depending on
the hygiene settings, more than 4 doses of OPV are needed to protect children for life.

What is the oral polio vaccine (OPV)?

OPV is the WHO-recommended vaccine for the global eradication of polio. Each child requires just two drops per dose to be immunized against polio. Usually administered four times if the
EPI schedule is followed, OPV is safe and effective in providing protection against the paralyzing poliovirus. OPV has been given to more than two billion children worldwide as part
of the eradication programme, and as part of routine immunization services in more than 200 countries.

Is it safe to administer multiple doses of OPV to children?

Yes, it is safe to administer 4 or more doses of OPV to children. The vaccine is designed to be administered multiple times to ensure full protection. In the tropics where the weather is hot, more than 4 doses of OPV are required for a child to be fully protected - sometimes more than ten are administered without side effects. Each additional dose further strengthens a child's immunity level against polio.

Does OPV have any side effects?

OPV is safe, effective and is the essential tool available to protect all children against polio. It has no common side effects and has been used all over the world to protect children against polio. Over the last 20 years, this vaccine has saved 5 million people from permanent paralysis by polio. On very rare occasions, the live, attenuated (weakened) vaccine-virus can cause paralytic polio cases. But this is an extremely small risk (it only occurs in approximately 1 in every 2.5 million doses administered; this risk applies primarily to the first dose of vaccine administered, and is reduced to virtually zero on subsequent doses). Children are in far greater
danger from the circulating polioviruses than from any adverse effects from the polio vaccine.

What is the effect of immunization?

OPV is highly effective in preventing natural poliovirus-induced poliomyelitis. The oral poliovirus vaccine stimulates the immune system to produce anti-poliovirus antibodies against poliovirus types 1, 2, and 3. The live virus persists in the intestine of receiving children for 4-6 weeks, inducing both mucosal and serum anti-poliovirus antibodies capable of neutralizing wild poliovirus.