Sunday, December 26, 2010

India only had 41 cases of polio in 2010

From Indian Express:

India’s fight against polio has started showing results with only 41 cases having been detected in the country this year. Experts involved with the polio eradication campaign in India are hopeful the country will the league of polio-free nations by next year.

“In the last two decades, the least number of reported cases of polio in India was recorded this year,” said Dr Sunil Bahl, Deputy Project Manager-Technical, National Polio Surveillance Project. The project run by the World Health Organization (WHO) shows 685 cases had been detected till December 22 last year.

“The 41 cases detected this year were from seven states — Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Jammu-Kashmir,” he said, delivering a presentation on “Working together to end polio- inter agency coordination meeting” in Chandigarh on Friday.

Bahl said the most vulnerable areas for the polio — the western UP and central Bihar — had not reported any single case since November 2009.